


Carousel

by Dreamitbeit



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: 404 Error: solar flares not found, AU, Alternate Universe, And YOU get a trope And YOU get a trope And YOU get a trope, Author greatly abuses the use of flashbacks, Found Family, M/M, Mentions of addiction, Mutual Pining, Pining, Secret Relationship, So many flashbacks, Summer Romance, but super vague, everybody gets a trope!!!!!, so much pining, some themes of abandonment, summer romance gone WILD, truly sorry about all the flashbacks, truly sorry about all the pining, vague descriptions of fist fights, very vague scifi elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:08:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 82,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22338274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamitbeit/pseuds/Dreamitbeit
Summary: At some point during their search of the party they stumble upon a girl whose shirt shifted and changed, the embroidered flower pattern blooming and wilting in a continuous loop. They’re both slightly mesmerized. Newt leans over, lips so close that they brush against the shell of his ear. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore Tommy.” A sunflower petal drifted down the girl’s arm.“It’s ‘feeling’.” Thomas rasps out, heart jackhammering, watching the living shirt grow and decay all over again.Newt quirks his scarred eyebrow indulgently. “What?”Thomas turns, their faces inches apart and trying to keep his voice even. “It’s ‘feeling’. The line. People always say it wrong. It’s ‘Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.’ People always…they always get that one wrong.”Newt’s playful smile shifts into something teasing and, yes, dangerous. Maybe just a bit beautiful as well.(Or; In between glowing screens with promises about his future and cracked pavement that spilled his memories, for one summer, Thomas floats.)
Relationships: Newt/Thomas (Maze Runner)
Comments: 96
Kudos: 78





	1. Nah

**Author's Note:**

> At the top of the first draft of this fic is 'keep it 20k and under' and I did not.

In an abandoned auto body shop the sharp tear of fabric was hidden under the sounds of the scuffle. Thomas wondered, in a somewhat detached fashion, just how bad he was in for it.

“That was my favorite flannel you dick.” Newt snapped with a laugh and shoved Thomas backwards playfully. The already ripped sleeve of the shirt pulling completely free as Thomas stumbled, clutching the green and black worn-thin material in his fingers. Thomas had his answer.

He was _really_ in for it.

Their eyes locked and Thomas grinned despite the throb it evoked in his bruised cheek, the pain just an echo of the fist that had put it there two days ago. And he _just_ couldn’t help the pleased smirk working its way onto his face, throwing the sleeve onto the floor with the other various pieces of garbage.

Strewn like confetti around the rust smelling room were empty plastic bags and scraps of paper, a spray can of paint with a cap that matched the color of the vibrant green graffiti on one of the walls amidst the other tags. A desk that hadn’t been used for a decade and some metal shelving.

A tasteful mix of administration office and post-apocalyptic chic. 

“So do something about it.” Thomas taunts with a smirk, pushing off the wall.

Newt’s eyes flash and Thomas rolled his shoulders, shaking out his throbbing arms and kicking an empty bottle aside and hearing it rattle satisfyingly against the uneven concreate. Thomas noticed, in the second before they move, the paper-thin scar that slashed across Newt’s eyebrow from a fight a year and a half ago. There was a moment of silence and the thump of a passing car stereo counted out the seconds with its heavy custom bass.

One.

Newt’s clenched fist turns outward slightly.

Two.

Thomas’s legs tense.

Three.

They wade back in.

Newt moves first, slamming their lips together, walking Thomas up against the desk. Searching mouth and searching hands e _verywhere_ , guiding him to sit on the edge, sparks running wild through his veins.

“You taste like apples.” Thomas mumbles in between the frantic motion. Newt’s apple-tasting-lips pull up wickedly at the sides. 

“That’d be the apple juice Tommy.” Words ragged and uneven and somehow still playful despite the waves in his voice. Thomas scowls, but before he can tell Newt to go walk off a bridge for being such a sarcastic shit, Newt yanks Thomas forward by the back of his thighs. When their bodies bump together Thomas opens his mouth to inhale sharply, and Newt sees his chance, slotting their lips together. When they break apart their chests push against each other with rapid inhales. 

Newt shudders from the crown of hair all the way down his body, and when Thomas opens his mouth to say, _something_ Newt doesn’t let him, winding a hand in his hair and kissing him deep and bruising, teeth pressing against lips. The hands that rested on Thomas’s thighs clenching. 

Breaking the kiss Thomas grins up at Newt, flushed cheeks and fluttering lashes and flashing hungry eyes, dragging his shirt over his head. Hissing as the motion pulled sore muscles along his side from Gally’s shoe, the imprint of it standing out on tanned skin.

Newt looked down at the bruised outline with a rueful grin “Gal got you good.”

“Fuck Gally.” Thomas snapped, hands winding in Newt’s hair and leaning up to kiss him again.

-

Thomas let his fingers trail along the chain link fence and the clinking sound fills the silence, the two of them wandering down the wide pavement. That was one thing you could say about their borough. It was still wide.

Sure, there were a lot of things not to like, if you wanted to focus on that. But it had been built, originally, back when there was still enough space for everyone. Sidewalks that could fit four people comfortably and massive trees that swayed, leaves hanging like long ropes. Big flat two-lane roads that could fit parked cars along the curb on both sides as well as traffic. Vintage Americana by lack of government funding and upkeep instead of chosen aesthetic.

“How do you run so fast in pants that tight?” Thomas asked, gesturing down to Newt’s black jeans.

“A plucky attitude and gumption.” Newt counters. “Besides, there not even that tight. _And_ I could beat you in a race wearing anything.”

“That a challenge?”

They paused at the crossroads of the street corner, Thomas tapping Newt’s offered knuckles as they parted ways. “Alby’s later?” Newt asks, pushing bangs sweaty from the heat (among other things) out of his eyes. 

“What’s at Alby’s?” Thomas asks absentmindedly.

Newt raises his eyebrows. “The first barbeque of the summer? The one that’s always at Alby’s? The one that’s been at Alby’s since forever.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Duh.” Newt adds, flicking his cap once, teasing. Thomas scowled.

“You actually coming?” Newt lingers and Thomas clicks his tongue in confirmation. Newt smiles and shoves him, because, after all, they _were_ best friends. The chaotic mix of emotions that ran through Thomas at the thought of Newt as his _best friend_ was _way_ too much for Thomas to fucking handle, and he promptly Supressed It. Which definitely wouldn’t have consequences.

And then Newt shoves him again, playfully, just for good measure. “Don’t be late.”

They part ways, exactly thirteen houses and three empty overgrown weed choked lots separating their intended destinations.

Thomas lets the slam of the grated front-screen door announce his arrival and Teresa lounging on the bright fabric covered couch looks up from painting her toenails pink to frown at him. Chipped wood coffee table in front of the sofa holding the victims of the afternoon. An empty bottle of pop. A discarded word-search. Two oranges worth of peels, the whole cozy bright bungalow that belonged to Teresa’s mother filling with the smell of citrus.

“Dickhead.” She declares, large curls swaying in annoyance. Thomas shrugs (she wasn’t wrong, he was a dickhead) and slouches down on the couch next to her, the telenovela playing softly on the old TV set as background music.

“A delicate flower as always T.” He mumbles.

“Dick. Head.” She repeats, jabbing the nail polish brush at him.

He knew why she was pissed, and yeah, okay, she might have a right to be, but when Newt had caught his eye on the cactus covered front lawn of Minho’s exactly an hour and a half before he was supposed to meet her all thoughts of the rest of the day had kind of flown out the proverbial window.

“Sorry.” He offered with a yawn and stretch, sufficiently drowsy in the afterglow and six pm heat that the swirl of the ceiling fan above them was doing nothing to dissipate.

She finishes her pinky toe and leans back to admire the candyfloss shade before screwing the cap on the bottle with a noted lessening of frustration. “It’s whatever. Ran into Harriet and Sonya.”

Something about Teresa’s house always made him drowsy. The bright but soothing yellow walls. The wind tunnel that worked its way through the single-story house, screened backdoor to front counterpart, wind coasting along his skin and inviting him to close his eyes, just for a minute. He fights the urge. His eyelids were sneaky fuckers, not to be trusted. Definitely not enemy number one, but up there.

“Yeah?” He asks, dragging his eyes away from the TV to blink up at her from his slouch. And it was a particularly good slouch, one of his better.

She nodded. “Mhm. Went to the pool hall. There’s a thing at Alby’s tonight.” 

“I know.”

“How?” She asks, frowning with confusion and Thomas freezes. 

“Because it’s always at Alby’s.” He says, ( _Duh_ he doesn’t add.) stating the obvious like she’s asked him why the sky is blue, and when she shoves him lightly and drops the subject his lungs start to work again. They might be Enemy Number One.

“Alby’s is always fun.” She cuts her eyes across to him. “Might be fun for you too.” _If you let it_ is not stated but fully implied.

Thomas scratches his sore scalp and remembers the way that Newt’s fingers had dragged through his hair and _pulled_. “Valid.” He says noncommittally. Teresa wiggles her candy colored toes in annoyance at him.

“Don’t act so excited. Someone might think you actually have an emotional setting besides ‘chill’ and ‘fucking lunatic.’ And we wouldn’t want that.” 

He chuckles and pulls himself up from the couch. On the screen, someone fresh out of a coma was in the process of meeting their secret identical evil-twin. “Wouldn’t want that.” He confirms. “I’m gonna have a shower and a nap and then we’ll head out?” He asks and she nods, already turning her attention back to the bright pink polish bottle, starting on her fingers. She doesn’t ask where he was. Or why he ditched her.

A part of him is terrified.

Thomas stares into the mirror, brushing his teeth _hard_ and when he spits the foam is the same color as Teresa’s nails. His knuckles clench white on either side of the sink and he lets out a long angry sigh, leaning forward and pressing his forehead against his double’s. Squeezing his eyes closed and wondering just how good it would feel to put his head through the cool glass. Probably really good.

But, Thomas had always been a bit of a sucker for punishment.

-

Greenvale was just one subdivision that’s geographical story was near identical to subdivisions in the major cities (on the ground at least) all over the country. It was rows of single floor houses with lawns, some with plants and white gravel and some with nothing but burnt grass and cars up on blocks, but all the homes had bars on the windows, an acknowledged necessity. It was concrete box apartment complexes and a run-down community center. Thrift stores, a combo deli/sandwich shop older than god herself, a huge no-name superstore, a couple of parks that were somewhat maintained by the city and a skate park that wasn’t. Massive swaying evergreen oak trees that grew stubbornly in the heat, probably going to outlast them all.

Living throughout the landscape of graffiti and cracked sidewalks were generations of families down on their luck by happenstance or choice or just the general unfairness and corruption of the system they existed within. A high school with exo-plastic and metal detectors at all the entrances that buzzed to life occasionally and I.D cards that students had to scan every time they came and went. A constantly rotating student body of three thousand and the overworked-underpaid teachers with stars in their eyes and dreams of _making a difference_ had long since stopped trying to memorize names and faces.

The borough that Greenvale existed in was one of the oldest, the biggest, and, the most infamous. Despite all this, the people that lived there loved it with a fiercely protective passion. Because, after all, there’s no place like home.

-

Teresa’s nail polish is still tacky from the heat as they wandered down the street, and if they hadn’t walked to Alby’s and Ximena’s house countless times before they would’ve been able to just follow the sounds of the party through the dark humid night.

The weight of Teresa against his side and when she laces their fingers together is as comfortable and familiar as breathing. They weren’t together, not like that, but.

They’d shared one (genuine) fumbling kiss when they were thirteen spurred on by their friends constantly remarking they’d be a cute couple as well as a bottle of tequila, but the moment their lips had locked they had pulled away in unison and made identical expressions of ‘ick.’.

“People think were dating.” Teresa had said to him one day in the ninth grade.

He’d frowned. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.” He’d said with raised brows. “What’d you tell them?”

“That’d you’d never be able to get me in a million years.”

Thomas had grinned. “Valid.” And then- “We can be clearer about it, if, you know.”

She’d shaken her head. “It’s nice to not have people bugging me when they think we’re together. If that’s cool with you?”

“If it makes your life easier T, let ‘em think whatever they want.” Thomas had said with a shrug. He didn’t care, particularly, what people thought about him. Teresa had smiled.

And when Thomas had showed up on Teresa’s mom’s doorstep in the tenth grade with a locked jaw, downcast eyes, his hands shoved in his pockets and a duffle bag at his feet Teresa’s mom had sighed, saying “You can take the spare room. Hands where I can see them.” and opened the door further.

Thomas had bit his lip, staring at her shoes. “No problem.” And then, much quieter, “Thanks.”

Teresa’s mom, Mariana, knew Thomas’s mother. And it was a surprise to no one besides him when she’d split town. (Teresa’s mom was also a realist, and knew the way their world worked. Thomas wasn’t the biggest kid on the block but he was tough as nails, good in a fight, and had Teresa’s back the way that Teresa had his.)

The beer cans in Thomas backpack clinked as they walked, matching in time with Teresa’s small wedge heels and she skipped a step in her excitement, throwing off the beat they’d set together. He tried not to feel betrayed.

“Someone’s happy.” Thomas teases and she sticks her tongue out in his direction. Poking his nose as well, just to make sure.

“You betcha. Schools out, summers here. And we’re _free_. No more classes no more books _if_ you know what I mean.” 

Thomas opens his mouth to remind Teresa that she’dve skipped twice the number of classes that she did if he hadn’t bugged her, but thinks better of it. Choosing instead to readjust his baseball cap and steer them through the rusted front fence of Alby’s house, a large graffiti banner spitting out ‘Greenvale crew’ tied up sloppily out front and shielding the windows.

The second they stepped off of the sidewalk and into the front yard the party swallowed them whole.

People hung off the porch and slacked on the front lawn in fold out chairs, drinking and smoking and joking and, occasionally, showing off. Calling greetings to Thomas and Teresa as they walked past, Teresa waving and calling back and Thomas smiling in spite of himself.

He let Teresa lead him into the house without comment, his voice swallowed up in the thumping music and his mouth filled with the thick hanging smoke pouring out through every opening of the home.

Bodies danced and moved and slid through the single floor house, wood floor old and worn and paint that had long since stopped being glossy. Yet none of this taking away from the fact that everyone there was genuinely _happy_. And yeah, it was mixed furniture, and yeah, it was cramped and crowded. But despite all this, the house with its loud with music and drifting laughter was, without a doubt, a place of family.

Fry, a few years older than them, bowed to Teresa and spun her like a ballerina by her outstretched hand while she laughed. “Take notes.” Teresa says to Thomas with a grin. “ _That’s_ how you treat a lady.”

Beth, a girl in their grade slapped Thomas on the shoulder and handed him a joint without a word and they toked before passing it along to the next person, setting off again in search of their friends.

“Backyard?” Teresa shouts in his ear over the music and Thomas nods. They make their way out of the loud sounds and rainforest humidity of a packed party. As they pass the kitchen table Thomas absentmindedly shifts a sweating beer can from the wood to a coaster. It had been Alby and Ximena’s mother’s and he loved it more than almost anything else.

(Thomas was, as Teresa would say, a grumpy fuck, and maybe didn’t really want to be there; but it’ll be a cold day in hell before he disrespects Alby’s mother’s kitchen table.)

The backyard was concrete, grass, and a slightly busted awning. Fairy lights hung around the chipped brick half-walls that Teresa and Sonya and Harriet had put up for Alby’s birthday party a year ago and then never bothered to take down. ‘If the ladies like em, they stay.’ Alby had said with a grin and a playful wink. The barbecue in one corner sizzled, the smells of cooking meat and lime making Thomas’s stomach grumble, and even as they watched Ximena caught their eye, waving to them before returning to the task of leaning over Alby’s shoulder and playfully gesturing to the grill, mouth moving. They couldn’t hear her complaints, but Alby’s eye roll gave them the gist of it.

“Thomas! Teresa!” As one they turned.

And then, there they were. 

Minho leaning against the back wall, shirt declaring proudly, ‘Son of Immigrants-for the people’. His arm slung around Sonya playfully and grinning at the two of them as the blonde girl waved them over. Harriet sitting directly behind her on the low wall that separated the backyard from the alley, and Sonya’s arm that wasn’t frantically signalling them was draped across her legs. And then a tall thin silhouette was turning and Newt looked over his shoulder at Thomas, beer can raised to his lips and pausing there. (Those lips, the ones that had skated along his neck only hours ago.) His scar-cut eyebrow quirking in acknowledgment.

“Your late.” Newt says as Thomas plants himself between Newt and Minho. (All was officially right in the world.)

“Building suspense.” Thomas returns with a smirk, cracking a beer and handing it to Teresa before doing the same for himself.

Newt snorted. “Or building hopes that you’d be a no-show. Try to keep it cool tonight okay? Gal is here and Alby doesn’t want infighting.” He snapped his fingers lazily under Thomas’s nose. “Rule number one of borough survival, don’t fight your friends.”

Thomas pretended to consider the option. “Since _when_ have we started considering Gally my friend?”

Harriet wrinkled her nose at him from her perch on the back wall. “You ever just like, try to not…” She gestures vaguely to Thomas’s entire essence. Thomas takes offence, but also nods in acknowledgment. He did in fact, try to not, vaguely. With little success. 

“You think you’d make it one day on the block without us?” Minho teased with a light shove.

Thomas grinned, surrendering to the haze and the party and the dancing bodies and thumping bass, taking a sip of his beer and letting it fizzle on his tongue. “Nah.” 

Newt shook his head and rolled his eyes, mouthing ‘Oh my god.’ And shoving him too, for good measure. And then Newt’s hands lingered, twitching for just a second. Like he wanted to pull Thomas closer. Goosebumps rose on the back of his neck.

Harriet’s face broke into a grin, gesturing to Thomas and his three best friends as Fry appeared beside them. “Hey Fry, look, the sewer dwellers have assembled.” 

The four of them scowled in unison while the others snorted. “Isn’t it getting old yet?” Newt noted with an eye roll. 

Fry laughed. “Things don’t get old if they’re cosmic destiny.” 

It kinda _was_ bad luck, the fact that the four of their initials spelt ‘TMNT’. There’d been a cornucopia of turtle themed jokes for a while once Gally had figured it out. 

It’d only really been two years since Sonya stopped jumping out of bushes and shouting ‘RADICAL DUDE’ in their faces.

(And she’d only _really_ stopped because one time she’d startled Thomas so badly he’d shrieked and reflexively thrown his entire slushie on her. Apparently, razzle-dazzle-blue-raspberry was _impossible_ to get out of clothing.)

Thomas let out a sigh. “I thought we were done with this.” 

“We could start giving people salmonella, really live up to our rep?” Minho offers after taking a sip of his beer. 

Teresa wrinkles her nose. “I don’t even want to know how we’d do that.”

“Well,” and Newt’s grin had been sharp, eyebrow quirked. “Maybe this is just the summer we get people to put their mouths on us.” 

And then Thomas had shot beer foam out of his nose like a fucking faucet and that, if anything, set the tone for the evening. 

-

They weren’t criminals. Okay, at _most_ , a generation ago, they once could be considered slightly professional car-jackers. And Minho and Newt and Teresa and Thomas and their friends weren’t in any of it. Only hanging because of location and necessity and, mostly, by association of Newt.

Okay, according to the police and the government and the people that existed past the boroughs and the neighbourhoods and the graffiti tags and the security checkpoints that would lead into more affluent parts of the city and the world, maybe there could be an argument that at one point Alby’s father and Newt’s father and his uncle Vince had been car thieves.

Back when the consequences of the MEV-2 virus were still being felt, long before Thomas or any of his friends were born, back when their parents were just a bit older than Thomas and his friends were now, their neighbourhood was bad, like really _bad_. A certain level of crime was expected, and even then, a lot of the money from the operation was funneled back into the borough. (‘Diet cola robin hoods’ Newt would deadpan and then snort sarcastically.)

It wasn’t about money or power. It was about protecting your family in a system that had left you no other option and it was about making sure that it was safe for the neighbourhood kids to walk to school and it was about who’s back you had and who had yours.

But Alby’s dad had died a few years ago and Newt’s uncle had gone away for a long time on a trumped-up possession charge and Newt’s dad had died before he was born. So Alby’s big sister, Ximena, the arguable matriarch of the whole thing had taken over the auto body garage, spinning it into a legitimate business. And Newt’s cousin Dan had too and it was looking like Alby, almost twenty four, five years Newt’s senior, was stepping up to a bigger role.

But, it was kind of the worst kept secret in the borough that at one point, the whole thing had definitely revolved around crime. And that a few others in the neighbourhood were in on it as well. It just kind of worked out that they all had kids roughly around the same time. Meaning, in a lot of ways, that those kids were not only raised together, but friends from birth. 

-

Stumbling down the street three sets of legs wobbled and tripped and took turns giving Teresa piggybacks. “Onward!” She not-quite shouts with a pointed finger as they wander under the buzzing streetlights on their way back to their houses. A three-minute journey ends up taking forty-seven as they play-fight and jump and jostle each other after the party.

Minho did a cartwheel and they shouted out various scores. Thomas and Newt were both impressed, giving it an eight point five. Teresa was brutal, only a six.

“Your cousin’s kind of a dick dude.” Minho said once he’d righted himself fully.

Newt snorted. “Tell me something I don’t fucking know.”

“Dan better get it on lock, Alby’s been pissed that he’s been causing shit.” Thomas adds and Newt shrugs.

“Not my problem.” He says, and _visibly_ pushes the thought away, lunging and plucking Thomas’s hat off his head.

“ _Betrayal_.” Thomas hisses, taking off after Newt. Legs unsteady and world tilting as Newt jogged backwards and laughed, placing the previously mentioned betrayal on his head.

“Gotta be slicker than that to keep up Tommy.” Newt taunted and Thomas grinned. Newt under the glow of the street light was, in fact, mildly deadly.

“Newt’s _truly_ messed up if he’s saying ‘Tommy’ again.” Minho teased, just as drunk, and Newt tripped, stumbling. Thomas saw his chance and lunged, snagging his hat back and placing it on his own head with reverence. Minho had mentioned, on more than one occasion, that he had a slight flare for the dramatic. So had Teresa and Newt, now that he thought about it.

“The King is once again crowned.” Thomas added with a flourish, and then the recently declared King tripped and fell on his face with a cartoon level splat. “ _Shitfuck_.”

Regally, of course.

Newt snickers. “The king is dead.”

“Long live the king.” Minho and Teresa chime.

Face down on the pavement Thomas’s fist shoots up into the air. “Long live the king.”

When Thomas had moved back to the neighborhood at nine years old after seven years away living with his grandmother (who had died), with no friends and barely a mom and a dumb accent that made him stick out like a bruised knuckle, he’d applied himself to losing said accent _real_ quick. Thomas had talked to himself in the mirror for hours, forcing his mouth to forget the long-held swaying enunciations that looped and twisted like a lazy river. Instead he’d practiced the second language of the block, a combination short burst of sounds and sharp slang like gunfire tap-tap-tapping off his tongue. If he was really _really_ drunk he’d been known to drop the occasional Louisiana-bayou ‘y’all.’ that would catch him heat from his friends for days.

-

Hungover and hurting Thomas and Teresa had stumbled from the house together in the morning, Teresa swinging to the left when the front path hit sidewalk with a vague wave over her shoulder and mumbling something about Harriet’s place and Beth and Sonya driving them out to the beach and the boardwalk carnival. No added invitation for him, nuh-huh, no way, not on a ‘girl’s day’. 

So, Thomas goes right instead. Padding along the wide pavement past the single floor bungalows, the bright store fronts, the park with its jungle gym and long since shut down splash pad. He walks past a single burnt out candle propped up against a street-light and when he reaches the two-lane over-pass bridge he hops up, balancing on the wide flat railing with his arms thrown out and placing one foot directly in front of each other, wobbling heel to toe, heel to toe.

He’s about halfway across when there’s a blast of a whistle through teeth and Thomas looks to his left, pausing mid-step as the old school Ford Thunderbolt slowed to a stop next to him. Big out-of-this-world wheels throwing the car off balance and making it look like it was flexing its biceps at him.

“Thomas!” Fry called with a grin from the window.

“Hey Fry.” Thomas called back, starting to place one foot in front of the other again, the car rolling along beside him.

“Where you going?” Fry asks, hanging easily out the window, ignoring Gally’s(fuck Gally) snarl from the driver’s seat.

Thomas contemplates the question. Where was he going?

He could go to the pool hall, see who was there and who wasn’t, and if certain people _were_ there that would mean others weren’t, or who _wasn’t_ there _together_ and the intricacies of inner-city-kid politics would continue to unfurl before his eyes like a scene from national geographic. Their neighbourhood was generational, and the friends that hung out together were the baby siblings of kids who rolled with each other years ago, and even before that their parents would chop it up just as Thomas and his group did now. There was history on his block.

Or Thomas could go to the skate park and snag hits from one of many joints that would be available to him and steal sips from any number of bottles. Let the day slip out from under his feet with the grind of board on halfpipe and spray of graffiti cans and eventually he would stumble back to Teresa’s with the light setting at his back, neck red and sunburnt and smarting.

Maybe he could go to the bus stop and ride the busted public transport until he reached the tallest point around, climb the ladder of the empty water tower and sit with his legs dangling between the bars. Lean back on his hands and stare to the north and up, up, up in the sky at the massive floating city in the distance. Hanging untouched in the air between the clouds. For Thomas, the playground perfection super-rich city of Atlas might as well be as far away as the moon it was named after.

“Minho’s.” Thomas says to Frypan instead, and the car stops. He hops off the thick bridge barrier, Fry getting out and pulling his seat forward for Thomas to climb past and sprawl out on the back bench, slumping against the window. As they turn down the familiar streets Fry looks at him in the side-view mirror.

“Thomas?”

Thomas blinks at the side-mirror version of Fry, all distorted and stretched. “Yeah?”

“Why were you walking along the bridge barrier?”

Thomas shrugs and mirror-Fry gives him a Look, capital L. A lot of people had been doing that lately.

“You’re a weird kid Thomas.”

Thomas shrugs. “It’s my artistic temperament.” He mutters, absentmindedly pulling at a rip in the knee of his pants.

They pour him out onto the sizzling sidewalk and Thomas doesn’t bother to go through the house, walking around the side and opening the squeaking gate that led to the backyard. A booming bark greeting him and a massive floppy-eared Great Dane roughly the size of a small horse tore around the corner, spiked collar flashing in the sun. It would be absolutely terrifying if it’s tail wasn’t currently slamming out a beat against a metal garbage can with the force of its wagging.

Thomas dodges her, absentmindedly patting her head and pushing her down, doing his best to avoid a full slobbery kiss. Alone in the center of the grassy backyard Newt turns in his seat in one of four lawn chairs, situated next to the patio couch. Newt’s lips quirk up and then down and Thomas wonders which of Newt’s own thoughts at his appearance made him smile and which made him frown.

“Hey.” Newt yawns non-committal and Thomas throws himself down on the couch, Princess the Great Dane sensing weakness and bounding over.

“Who’s my girl?” Thomas coo’d and Princess made it very apparent that s _he was_ , licking Thomas’s cheek enthusiastically. “Where’s Min?” He asks, an afterthought in the face of canine love.

“Still sleeping. He’ll be up soon. Heard Gal’s car, are they coming?”

“Nah.” Thomas says, petting the dog and not meeting Newt’s eye. Thomas and Gally’s more recent throw down was still fresh.

“Minho’s going get jealous that his mongrel loves you more than him.” Newt says instead, gesturing to the dog.

Thomas squawks, insulted. “Princess is no mongrel, she’s <em>pure</em> data.”

“Clearly.” Newt deadpans and Thomas chooses to ignore him out of respect for Princess.

“Isn’t that right Princess? Aren’t you the best?” Thomas blubbered in a thick high-pitched voice, reaching out with both hands to pull and play gently with the huge dog’s drooping jowls. 

“That’s disgusting.” Newt scolded, mouth screwed up in distaste, watching the way that Thomas wipes the dogs drool off his fingers and onto the knees of his pants. 

Thomas sank back into the couch, taking off his snapback to push his hair out of his eyes before readjusting the cap, tongue caught between his teeth and eyebrows wiggling. 

Newt takes this smug expression as his answer and snorts, crossing his arms and balancing his chair back on two legs, feet up on the milk crate between them. The footrest doubling as a table and an ashtray holder. “How’s smart kid class?” 

Thomas’s hangover instantly kicks into high gear. “You’re just as smart as me.” He mumbled, headache instantaneously slamming against his temple.

“Not in the way that they want.” Newt points out.

There’s a buzz of crickets in the overgrown patches of grass out back of Minho’s house and Thomas lets his head fall onto the back of the worn outdoor couch. The fabric sun bleached from sitting in the backyard for the past four months after Thomas and Minho and Newt had helped Minho’s dad had set them the task of building it on a restless afternoon. The block had been on lockdown that day, no one allowed out on the streets. It happened sometimes.

Every once in a while, there would be a night where flashing red and blue lights would pulse against the walls, and as Thomas lay on whatever surface he was trying to sleep on he would see the different shades yell and play. 

When he crashed at Minho’s and lay on the couch the bright red of a cop car speeding past would bring out the color of a vase Minho’s grandmother had brought with her from home. 

With his arms folded and hands tucked behind his head Thomas would watch the blurring shadows and sirens make Newt’s living room ceiling fan dance without moving as he reclined on the large chair. 

If he was in his borrowed room at Teresa’s house the blue lights would reflect off a mirror and directly into his eyes, forcing him to roll over and stare at the wall. 

Newt kicked a pebble in his direction and Thomas blinks, lost for a second. He points at the cop drone speeding past them high above their heads. “One-time busy today.” Nodding up at the ineffective surveillance devise.

“Thomas?” 

He let his chin weigh his head down and the harsh blue sky tilted up and away, looking back at Newt. “Huh?” 

Newt snaps his fingers, once. “Speak.”

Princess barks.

Thomas gestures to the dog. “What she said.”

“You two are, actually, on equal levels of communication.” He amends dryly before raising his scar-brow in a tilt. “School, Thomas. How’s it going?” 

_You can be more than this Thomas._

The crickets buzzed. His headache throbbed. He looks back up at the sky. “Stupid.” 

And then-

“Sonya take T and Harriet to the beach?” Newt asks. Thomas nods and pats the massive dog.

“My mom and Alex are gone until tomorrow.” Newt tells the milk crate that he was resting his converse on. Thomas overhears this.

“Alright.” Thomas says, staring at the sky.

-

Thomas watches as Newt pulls his shirt back on from his sprawled-out position on Newt’s bed, counting the vertebra along his back and wondering if it was normal to be able to see that many.

He’d always been lean, all the years that Thomas had known him, but muscle and vein stood out like metal under silk when he was throwing a fist or pulling himself up over a chain link fence.

Or hovering above him, arms on either side of Thomas’s head and fists clenched into pillows, letting out whistle-gasps between teeth. He’d roll his hips in _that way_ and have Thomas reeling, ‘ _NewtNewtNewtNewtNewt_.’ Falling from his lips and Newt would grin wickedly even as he panted, hushing Thomas with his mouth.

With a rattle Newt pulls up the blinds and sun streams into the room, shadows from the bars fixed to the window-sill covering Newt in stripes. From the tint of orange in the light Thomas realizes absentmindedly that it was sunset and he’d manage to kill another day lost in Newt without meaning too. Cast in orange and stripes he watches Newt and thinks of long gone animals.

(The last individual of a species is called a ‘Endling’ Thomas’s brain supplies for him helpfully.)

Where Thomas’s room is organized chaos and wires hanging from shelves and boxes and boxes of tech parts, Newt’s room appears to be only softly lived in. Neat, especially by teenager standard. 

Sonya’s room one door down was an explosion of color that would leak out into the rest of the house and catch you and drag you inside if you weren’t careful. (The only mess more dangerous than Sonya’s was Harriet’s. That was truly the tenth wonder of the world.) But Newt’s clothes were folded into drawers and his closet door was closed and his bed wasn’t made, but still somehow not overtly unkempt. Two pictures taped to the wall. One of Sonya and him as children, Newt barely starting school and Sonya still a toddler. The other was of the four of them. A soccer tournament in sixth grade. City funded. Cheap jersey’s that itched. But they were smiling so _big_. Minho with a band-aid across his cheek and Teresa’s hair in messy braids. Newt’s knees were scraped and Thomas’s elbows grass-stained. 

Thomas reaches out, tracing the four younger versions of them with his finger. This room spoke of someone trying very hard to stay out of the way. Newt scratches his side and catches Thomas staring. “What?”

Thomas shrugs and readjusts his own recently pulled on shirt. “Nothin’.”

“Your particularly monosyllabic these days Thomas. Killing too many brain cells at that top-secret fancy school.”

Thomas grins. “You’re the one that just used ‘monosyllabic’ in a sentence. Wanna swap places? I’ll hang out here all day and you can go take the spelling-bee by storm.”

Newt laughed and flopped back onto his desk chair, spinning. “No thanks. I’ll leave that up to you, the chosen one.” He puts his feet down, halting his turn and looking at Thomas limp and drowning in the sheets and the lies floating above their heads. “Where does Teresa think you’re going?”

Thomas rolls over onto his stomach and crosses his arms, letting his chin rest on his wrist. “Summer school.” He mutters into his own skin and Newt let out a barking laugh of surprise.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.” Newt hums, rolling a pencil along his desk with his fingers.

Thomas buries his forehead into his crossed arms and inhales deeply for exactly ten seconds. “I’m not gonna get in.” He tells Newt’s pillow on the exhale. Newt overhears this.

“You’re going too.” Newt says, eyes trained on the pencil’s rolling path.

“Nah.”

Newt pushes the pencil off the side of the desk and leaves it where it falls, deciding to do the same with the previous topic of conversation. “Maybe you’ll finally re-learn how to speak instead of just grunting at people all the time.” He says, switching gears.

Thomas raises his eyebrows and snaps his teeth in response and Newt laughs again. Thomas scowls when he realizes that he’d just proven Newt’s point. And yeah, okay, maybe he used to be a bit chattier. And yeah, okay, maybe one or two of his friends were starting to notice.

But lately there was a Blue feeling in his stomach that was rising steadily like the tide and the more it filled up his insides and dripped into his lungs the less Thomas cared about anything.

(Aside from the way that Newt would look at him directly after they were done what they had done. Just for a second his smile would be That Smile, one that unfurled soft and slow like a wind sail, but then it was thrown away and a part of Thomas would go with it.) 

Later when he’s washing dishes after dinner in Teresa’s mom’s bright kitchen, he asks Teresa to count how many knots of his spine she can see. She gives him The Look, but despite this, puts down the drying cloth she’d been using. Tapping along his back, counting the numbers out loud as she goes. From the living-room Harriet, Sonya and Beth make cooing noises.

“Adorable.” Sonya declares.

“I’ve seen better.” Harriet adds drily.

“I may never see again.” Beth says, clapping her hands over her eyes.

The girls sandy and tanned from their day at the beach and the boardwalk. Teresa’s fingers smell like salt and seaweed and there’s a small piece of garbage stuck to the bottom of her sneaker lying on its side by the door.

He had two bumps less than Newt. (Thomas wonders what else he was missing inside as well.)

-

With a buzz at his wrist Thomas wakes resentfully, rising and slipping out of the house while the light is still pink. The neighbourhood had either just gone to bed or hadn’t woke up yet and Thomas had the streets to himself. Thomas’s eyes slide over his old house without seeing it, a trick he’d taught himself early on in his mother’s unscheduled departure. No one had moved in since it’d been repossessed, and he was grateful.

He rode the bus to the edge of his borough, entering the toll-booth styled security checkpoint, flashing his I.D card at the police bot and watching the machine think. It beeps in confusion, like a kid from Thomas’s social standings had _no_ business trying to enter this part of the world. Until it accesses the tiny little asterisk on his social file and whirls happily, words appearing on the screen that stated in big bold letters:

**TEMPORARY PASS ALLOWANCE: I.D A2**

**CLASIFICATION: A.I. ENRICHED PROGRAM STUDENT**

**VALID FROM: 2151/JULY/01 - 2151/AUG/31**

Thomas dutifully raises his arms and accepts the scan and pat down, watching his immunization records flash on the small screen and staring at the glinting badges on the cop’s jackets (W.C.K.D the letters scream). When the cops are done deciding if he’s a nuisance or not they let him go. The minute he’s through the barriers and the security fences he steps into another world.

A world of possibilities and wealth where everything is clean and well-kept. Screens in all the shop windows that are paper thin and holo ads that spring to life outside of stores when the right demographic walks past. Anti-gravity cars hover and float along the streets and the air is fresher, cleaner. Most of the building have moss walls where there isn’t shining metal, and many of the vertical lines of shrubbery that help filter pollution also sport massive colorful flowers.

Thomas hurries past all this with his head down, taking his second bus of the morning, this one noticeably cleaner. The sun now high over his head and he stumbles at the give and wobble of the vehicle, not quite used to the way the hovering machine moved and shifted under his feet.

The bus swings smoothly to life and Thomas watches the city unfold, the towering skyscrapers and the auto-recycling cans and the various exotic trees that had been bio-tweaked to grow absolutely anywhere on the planet, environment be damned. How the people on the street walk in short clipped steps like busy bees, zig-zagging to jobs in offices or to homes with chrome and neon lines that matched the vibrate clean-cut suits and flowing skirts and heels and haircuts that shifted and changed fashion with each lunar season.

Or, if they were lucky, _truly lucky_ , they would head to the pods, the oval-shaped shuttles that would rise up, up into the sky and to the north. The floating city of Atlas waiting with open arms. One of them catches Thomas’s eye and he cranes his neck in spite of himself against the bus window to watch it travel upwards.

“First time in the city dear?” An elderly woman in the seat next to Thomas asks him pleasantly.

“I go to school here.” Thomas says absently and without thought as he watches the doors to paradise float higher.

The Alexandria Institute for S.T.E.M looked like something out of a medieval science-fiction mashup, all old stone framework and shining glass additions. (It had a freaking bell tower for fuck sakes.) Towering roof and gleaming pillars and lockers with fingerprint scanners. State of the art tech labs and computers so fast and advanced Thomas’s hands itched to crack one open and get inside. 

Massive wrought iron gates encircle the entire campus, a full city block, and walkways made out of glinting glass that lit up under each footprint. Shining wood and glossy floors and textbooks with all their links and PDF files intact are a foreign land to Thomas. And even though it was his second week attending the gifted summer program at one of the most affluent private high schools that existed on the ground, he still hadn’t spoken a word to a single other student.

He’s not brave enough to admit to himself that underneath all the contempt there’s a bedrock level of intimidation.

(He’s not brave enough to admit a lot of things to himself. One of his many failings. At least, that’s how Thomas sees it.)

It didn’t help that he stuck out like a dime bag on the pavement from an out-turned pocket during a stop-and-frisk. With his plain t-shirt and plain jeans he might as well have been a screaming news headline in comparison to the rich kids that chatted and laughed around him, their clothing explosions of color or crimped fabric or intricate seam-work, long sleeved if they wanted to.

(The new auto-cooling fibers must really be fantastic, Thomas notes when a girl walks into his class in a head to toe black furry cape despite it being over thirty degrees outside. Her friends oo’d and aww’d excitingly. “Right from Atlas.” She declares proud and just a bit smug which, admittedly, is fair.)

Thomas taps his pen against his tablet and tries to focus on the math problem flashing on the screen in front of him, solving it without effort. He doesn’t bother to look up when someone settles into the seat next to him.

“Hey.” A hissed whisper.

If Thomas had been sitting in a shabby desk with Minho and Newt and Teresa laughing and cursing and throwing wadded up trash around him, he would have looked up with a smile. But he wasn’t, and they weren’t, so he doesn’t.

“Hey.” Spat at him again and Thomas _does_ look up at that, hackles raising because if there was one thing that life had taught him it was that tone was _everything_ and Thomas did _not_ like the tone in the other person’s voice.

Until he actually looks at the girl. Short buzzed hair and tanned skin and large dark eyes that flashed, slumping in her chair like it was her own living room. Arms and ankles both crossed and Thomas notices that her tablet question section is bare but there is a perfectly lined and detailed diagram of a gravitational engine labelled and shaded over a large part of the screen.

They size each other up and Thomas squares his shoulders at the way her eyebrow quirks. The two of them circling each other metaphorically like stray dogs meeting in a parking lot. In her large black boots and ripped clothes and bad attitude she had the same blaring ‘OUTSIDER’ sign hanging over her head that had been buzzing above Thomas since he’d first stepped into the building. The only difference was that hers shone with pride.

“Holy crap.” She whispers with a widening grin. “What dumpster did they pull _you_ out of?”

He turns back to his tablet. “One that’s better than yours.”

She stifles a snicker.

“Skip fifth?” She says. Thomas looks at her and then around at the kids that were so different from him they might as well be breathing water. He’d be brave enough to do this, at least.

“Okay.” He says.

“I’m Brenda.”

“Okay.”

-

The world turns to rust and dirt and swaying old oaks and bleached out stucco and cracked concreate in a single step over the borough checkpoint. The minute he can run without the cops thinking he’s up to something Thomas is sprinting towards the bus that would take him home.

“He emerges from the depths!” Minho calls from Alby’s porch, arms thrown out in greeting and smiling huge. “Where you been all day?”

“Summer school.” He gasps, breathless, because he ran the whole way from his bus stop like something was chasing him. Thomas stumbles into the front yard of Alby’s, hopping over a set of bell bars and falling to sit on the front porch steps with a thump, letting his chest heave and struggle to take in the hot dry air.

Minho winces. “Oh right.” He picks up his disregarded weight, resuming the arm curls he’d paused to greet Thomas. Minho had a thing about his arms and Thomas had to admit, dude was getting _jacked_. He subtly checked the difference in size of their biceps. He was seventeen and brimming with insecurities, but there was always room for more.

Alby appeared from behind the popped hood of the car he was currently working on, Ximena doubtlessly still at the garage they owned. They’d pooled resources from their inheritance to buy it, taking all of their knowledge of cars and turning it into an actual business.

Alby always said that he tried not to take his work home with him, but it seemed to bleed over into the front lawn, pet projects to tweak and re-sell for credits. When they were little Newt would trail along behind him as he fixed up engines and lie on his stomach and hand Alby tools when he would slide under whatever was parked in his driveway.

“What does that do.” Newt would say over and over again, pointing to different exposed parts. Standing on an old milk crate so that he could see and lean into the popped hood. And each time, with more patience than any teenager should reasonably have, Alby would answer him as he worked.

“What does that do?” Nine-year-old Newt would ask. (‘What’ sounding like ‘w-ath’ but we’ll get to that later.)

“It’s the carburetor. Mixes the air and fuel together properly. You eating enough? You look skinny.” Fourteen-year-old Alby would answer.

“Yeah. I had hot dogs for dinner last night. Mom never buys relish because only I like it. What does that do?”

“Spark plugs. It’s the thing that lights the air-fuel mixture. Hand me that ratchet-nah, the blue one. Thanks. How’s school? Nobody’s bugging you right?”

“Boring. And there was this one kid that tried to call me a name but I laid him out just like Dan told me too. He showed me how to punch so I don’t hurt my thumb. What’s that one do?”

“Exhaust valve, it opens to let the gas out. Don’t listen to Dan when it comes to school. Or fighting. Anyone bugs you, just tell me instead.” Alby would say, looking over to Newt, ruffling his hair.

“Summer school?” Alby asks dragging Thomas back to the present, wiping his hands on an oily rag and frowning. Leaning against the car and turning his attention fully on Thomas. And neither of the secrets that are sloshing in his stomach are, particularly, ones he wants Alby to find out.

‘Schools the way out of here. If not you, then maybe your kids. It takes time. Work at it. Stick together. Help each other. Things are going to change one day.’ Ximena would always say, a flash of determination in her eyes. Alby had taken up the mantle as well.

It was known throughout the neighbourhood that the kid, Miyoko, who went pro-track a few years back and was favorite for the Olympics this summer got her first pair of running shoes from Alby. (Only a teenager himself at the time.)

“Yeah. Uh, I’ll be all good for the fall though. Senior year. Promise.” He mumbles and Alby seems satisfied, but narrows his eyes regardless.

“You need school stuff? Books?” The man asks, looking at Thomas like he’s got him in the center of crosshairs at the end of a stun-gun, ready to buzz to life.

Thomas thinks about the gleaming chrome surfaces and spotless halls. His stomach rolls with guilt. “Nah.” Eyes tracing a crack in the pavement.

Alby looks back down at the engine and sighs, scratching his head. “You see Dan around?”

Thomas shook his head. “Uh-huh.”

Alby’s mouth thinned. “He was supposed to be here an hour ago.”

From inside the driver’s seat of the car Frypan gave a chuckle. “You know Dan. He’s probably off somewhere running his mouth.” 

Alby let out an irritated sigh. “That’s what I’m worried about.” Mumbled more to himself before taping the hood of the car. “Try er’ now Fry.”

The car sputtered, parts grinding together and stalling. Fry killed the engine and the two young men slumped in defeat. “Fuck it.” Fry sighs. “It’s Dan’s fault. I dunno how, but it’s Dan’s fault.”

Thomas made a mental note to steer clear of Dan for the forseeable future. Apparently, it was all his fault.

Thomas shifts, and his bus pass, his _new_ bus pass, the one from the _other_ side of the checkpoint falls out of his pocket. Moving like lightning, snatching it off the ground and shoving it back in his jeans before anyone could see. Minho raised his eyebrows.

Thomas swallowed. “What?”

“Nothing.” Eyebrows getting higher. Thomas turns away from him to examine the crack in the pavement again. It was interesting stuff.

“Hey.” A different voice says. Something thumps in his chest.

There’s a knee nudging into his back and Thomas tilts his head up and smiles for the first time all day. “Hey Newt.”

-

Five months ago (last March, he was fairly sure.) Thomas had been called to the Principal’s office, his name a familiar set of syllables over the crackling P.A. He’d stood up amidst the cheers and whistles from his friends, sauntering down the hall with an easy grin.

Minho had gotten a bottle of liquor that the four of them were going to go sip-for-sip with after school in the park. Last week some of the older kids on their block had let him and Minho and Newt spray their own tags onto the massive mural out back of one of the abandoned office buildings, Teresa hanging off Thomas’s shoulder and badgering him until he wordlessly handed her the can, eyebrows raised. She’d put them all to shame. “Damn.” Fry had said impressed as he leant against Gally’s car while she painted slashes and long looping strokes, dying her hand green for days.

Thomas sighed. Everything was data and good. Everything was how it should be.

But when he was seated across from unimpressed eyes and a carefully disappointed gaze, the massive folder that fell onto the Principal’s desk with a thump indicated that everything was not, in fact, data and good, or how it should be.

Thomas noticed that her traditional pantsuit was a lovely shade of eggshell, and no matter how hard he tried he could never quite figure out how she managed to stay so spotless in a school filled with grubby teenagers. Maybe when you were that proper(uptight) dirt just didn’t stick.

Thomas wouldn’t know. His family was from places lower than dirt.

“Thomas.” Principal Paige said in her ever-calm and even tone. “This is your personal file.” She tapped her finger on the red folder (and it was _big_ ) before reaching back into a drawer and placing a tablet on the desk. It was thin and sleek and compared to his tabbed and dog-eared file it looked particularly high tech.

Her finger moved to the unidentified tablet, tapping it once and making the screen light up cheerfully. “This is the entrance exam for the Advanced Bridging Program at the Alexandria S.T.E.M Institute. It is a summer course that, if completed with a high enough grade percentage, is a conditional acceptance to their gifted program for a full school year. It is a way for students to prove their aptitude to the school if they are transferring or trying to enroll. If a student passes, and is accepted for the fall term, they may also be required to stay in the dorms provided, if they live outside of the school’s district. Besides.” She re-folds her hands. “Students are still allowed to leave campus on the weekends, all the school requires is a signature and an in-person interview with a legal guardian.”

Thomas’s blood ran cold. He’s managed to fly under the radar so far, concerning the fact that he was, by all rights, parentless. But maybe this was her way of telling him that the jig was up. “….and?” He eventually asked in the silence.

She folded her hands again, back ramrod straight. “And, we are going to sit here, and I’m going to do work quietly and watch the clock while you complete this entrance exam.” She held her hand up at his disbelieving, and maybe a bit relieved, laughter, continuing to talk over his squawks. “No, Thomas. I _am_ serious. We both know how smart you are, and we both know that your options are limited. This is your best bet.”

His smile started to slip. In the distance the bell buzzed, signifying the end of class. “I gotta get to Computer Coding.” He said, slinging he backpack over his shoulder. She motioned for him to sit back down and he did slowly and with a hint of rebellion. Paige smiled agreeably and stared at him and Thomas knew he was in for it.

“Thomas, I have every confidence that you can make something impressive of yourself if given the right tools. The right tools are not here, which we both know. We also both know that you are walking a very thin line, with a very complicated group of people and a very dangerous world that they operate within.” He opened his mouth but she spoke over the gesture. “We also both know that your future is not set in stone quite yet.”

Completely unnerved and maybe panicking a little, he grasps at straws, blurting out “My grades are crap.”

Paige turned to look out the window for a moment, searching for something, trying to find it in the large swaying trees and metal benches filling the school courtyard. Eventually she gives up. “That’s true. But you are a _very_ smart kid, and of the very smart kids, you have the least support or resources, and as a result, the least chance.” She says with bland honesty and Thomas looks down, willing himself not to blush and working his jaw angrily.

“I’ve got options.” He says sullenly.

“Not good ones.” She countered.

“You don’t know shi-” Thomas catches himself. “You don’t know that.” He continues more calmly and she raises an eyebrow. For a second he sees her lip twitch and thinks she might laugh. It would be a momentous occurrence.

“I know enough. And I know you can be more than this Thomas.” Paige says and he twitches.

He wants to ask, ‘Why me?’ and then, ‘Why not Newt or Minho or Teresa? Or any of the other kids?’ but he answers those questions himself. Minho was on track to graduate and was already talking about spending a year traveling with a relief-organization as a way to earn credits for school. Teresa would follow her mom to college with the painstakingly saved money her mother had accumulated. Second generation of post-secondary. Both Minho and Teresa’s families were decidedly on the up-and-up.

And Newt…Newt was in the block deeper than anyone. He had been written off by the system since day one. His father had been tagged by the cops since before Newt was born. He was infamous. Newt had never had a chance.

Thomas looked down at the blinding sliver thin computer and thinks about his friends and his family and the streets that were practically a corporal being that could walk beside him. He knew every face, every chip in the concreate.

He could still, to this day, tell the exact spot on the sidewalk where Teresa, Minho, and Newt had turned around, the three of them clutching the straps of their bright cartoon character covered cheap backpacks and stared at him with big suspicious baby eyes.

‘You’re the new kid.’ Newt had said, but ‘kid’ had come out as ‘ki-th’ because he was still missing both front teeth. (One of the many reason’s that ‘Tommy’ had happened. If Newt tried to say ‘Thomas’ it would come out ‘Tom-ith’.) There had been a glittery pink band-aid wrapped around Teresa’s pinky. Minho hadn’t hit his growth spurt and was the shortest.

The screen of the tablet sitting on Paige’s desk goes dark from lack of activity. Thomas looks towards the door. He didn’t need any program and he didn’t need rich people’s charity and he didn’t need anything more than what he was lucky enough to have. He _definitely_ didn’t need to go and live across the checkpoint in some rich-kid-prison dormitory away from everyone and everything he’d known for the last eight years.

That what he had was more than good enough, _actually_ , and that the tablet and the people that it represented, that thought they were better than him simply because they’d never had to fight or struggle or figure it out for themselves, could go and fuck right off. 

(Thomas wonders, faintly, if he in fact had a bit of an attitude problem. Among other things. He had a lot of problems. He couldn’t really keep track of them all, to be honest.)

What Thomas says instead of all this is “I don’t have any money, and I bet it costs massive credits.” 

“There are scholarships.” She says and pushes the tablet towards him. He looks at it, knife thin and like it might cut him if he picks it up and she sighs. “Look at it this way. Write the exam. You don’t get in, you never have to think about it again, and you get to miss today’s Coding Class.”

‘I like Coding’. He doesn’t grumble.

Thomas stared down at the piece of tech nicer than anything in any of the houses in a five-mile radius and thought about how two months ago their friend Ben had gotten in a fight with some guys from a different school and Minho and Newt and Thomas had scrambled down the alley to help him. Coming away bruised and bleeding but victorious. Minho recreating the fight with more and more dramatic additions all night and Newt sitting on Alby’s front porch beside him, sharp shoulder bumping into Thomas’s every time he laughed. And sitting there, Thomas felt like he _belonged_.

He swallowed and tapped the screen, watching it light up again under his finger and telling himself that he’d just fill it out to make Paige shut up and get himself the hell out of there.

Instead, Thomas sits silently for the entire three hours and actually _tries_ , the sensation unfamiliar to him in terms of academia. Paige turns to her own screen and taps away quietly. Occasionally Thomas notices her looking at him.

After, Thomas walks to the park with his shoulders hunched and hands in his pockets, drifting softly along the concreate path in between the trees and rusted swing sets towards his friends, the group of them lounging on a picnic table in various states of disarray and afternoon buzz.

“Where’d you bounce to?” Teresa asks him, raising her head from her sprawled position when he stomps up to them. He sat down and started to connect the dots of cigarette burns in the wood, feeling the inconsistencies in the grain with the pad of his finger.

“Principal’s.” He offers noncommittally.

Newt takes a sip from the bottle before passing it to Thomas and he inhales a huge gulp gratefully. “What’d she want?” Newt asked.

Thomas thinks about telling them, and decided against it. It didn’t matter.

“To see if I’d been the one to set off that smoke bomb last week.” Thomas says around the edge of the plastic and Minho chokes out a surprised laugh. The swing sets squeak in the distance and kids laugh and scream and kick up sand just like the four of them once had.

“Really?” Newt asks, eyebrows raised and maybe a bit concerned.

Thomas grins and takes another swig, the strange afternoon already fading from memory in the bright sunlight and balm of his friends and the burn of cheap vodka. “Nah.”

He hands the drink to Teresa and she smiles, hoop earrings spinning lazily as she holds up the plastic bottle in a toast, warm afternoon sun washing everything yellow. “A família.” She had said.

“Geon-bae.” Minho had said.

Thomas had gotten in.

-

The day after Thomas and Brenda skipped fifth period together at school, they skipped fifth again. “It’s fine.” Brenda said with an eye-roll. “If anything, they’ll breathe a sigh of relief that we’re acting the way we’re supposed to.”

“Yeah?” Thomas says eyebrows raising and she nodded, popping open the casing for the lock attached to the door they’d found that would lead them to the roof.

“Do you hear yourself? ‘Yeah.’ ‘Nah.’ I thought this program was supposed to be for geniuses.” She teased as she fiddled with the wires. Thomas scowls and knocks her hands away, looking at the exposed mainframe for a moment before plugging his small, school donated watch wrist drive. He typed silently, scanning the lines that flashed up on the screen before smiling. With a few more taps there was an audible click and the door swung open. 

She rolled her eyes again. “So you’re good with code, big deal.” Breezing past him, climbing to the roof on the small ladder with Thomas following.

“It’s kinda fucked though, isn’t it?” She said as they lay on the metal roof of the school and looked out at the huge gleaming city, tasteful flashing billboards and moss walls affixed to skyscrapers to help with oxygen purification looking down on them, both literally and figuratively. Various cars whizzed above their heads and below on the streets. Brenda waved her arm in a vague gesture. _All of this_.

“Understatement.” Thomas said with a snort. Brenda sat up, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small joint with a flourish, lighting it and inhaling deeply before offering it to Thomas with questioning eyebrows.

“But this breaks the code of ethics I signed when I was accepted.” Thomas breathed, placing his hand delicately to his chest in scandal.

Brenda snorts. “I knew there was a personality underneath all that grumpy fuck exterior.”

Thomas grins and takes the joint from her. “Understatement.”

When their eyes are slightly blood-shot and small vacant grins are fixated on their faces she turns to him. “So.” Brenda says while knocking her boots together. “Where you from?”

Thomas scrunches his face up slightly and considers the question for a minute. “Past the checkpoint.” He says with a grimace and watched her eyebrows rise in understanding. She nods, and then nothing more. They don’t ask each other which borough, which neighbourhood.

Things would get awkward _real_ quick if they were from parts of the city that didn’t get along.

It was awkward, _real_ quick, anyways, and Thomas looks for something to break the silence.

“That’s cool.” He says, pointing towards the small snake tattoo that waved and slithered in place along Brenda’s collarbone. The moving Nano-Ink cost credits and Thomas was the first to admit, he was impressed.

Brenda grinned. “Yeah it’s data as fuck. Hurt like hell though.” The small snake slithered under her skin and Thomas watched it transfixed.

“How’d you afford it?”

“Birthday present from my dad.” She said, exhaling smoke.

“Really?” He asked with raised eyebrows.

“Yu-up.” She popped out before checking her wrist. “We should get back.” She stood and yawned and Thomas sat up to follow her.

“Oh!” Brenda said, hand on his shoulder and he paused as she leant over him, digging in her pocket for a moment before finding eye drops, taking his chin in her hand and dripping liquid into his eyes to correct the redness. “We gotta stick together, okay Thomas?”

Thomas grinned. “Understatement.”

Because, after all, loyalty was one thing they both understood. You looked out for your own past the checkpoints.

She smiled and shoved him. And then again, for good measure.

It was nice to have a friend, Thomas thought.

Brenda and him become something of a team at school. They walk down the halls together and feel contempt together and smile and smirk and flash their teeth at the other kids together. Safety in numbers.

They scare away the rest of their classmates together. Who don’t need much initiative to stay away, if Thomas was being honest. It turned out that Brenda was some kind of engineering prodigy, that she hadn’t even _bothered_ to apply to the program or write the entrance exam, simply sending in one of her designs instead.

“Got back to me twenty minutes later.” Brenda had said smugly as they took notes in Bio, and while she tells him about her plans to completely modernize green energy their teacher Mary shows the class simulations that projected what rainforest growth looked like a hundred years ago.

“Better hurry up.” Thomas mutters to her with a nod to the screen. She looks at the images of dirt and living green like they were a challenge, eyes flashing.

More often than not, the Olympics somehow ended up being the topic of conversation, their entire city pulsing with energy over the excitement of hosting the global event, and even though the athletes and press were staying up on Atlas, a fair number of competitions were taking place on the ground. Most of Thomas’s classmates had parents that were connected enough, high up enough, able to pull enough favours to score them tickets to multiple events.

Which is unheard of. The Olympics had, for at least all of Thomas’s lifetime, been the largest event on the planet. As a result, tickets were _very_ hard to come by. Considering the whole world wanted one.

(Thomas thinks smugly of Miyoko and how people were paying huge sums of money to see someone that Thomas had been cheering for at sports events since he was nine. It had been a dirt track out back of his school instead of a shining coliseum, but still.)

Thomas wakes up before Teresa and her mom every morning and takes the long lonely dawn-pink bus ride to the checkpoint and then beyond, into the proverbial future. He leaves school the second the bell rings, out of his seat and down the halls like a shot but it’s still always dusk by the time he gets home. He combs the neighbourhood to find his friends and when he catches sight of shoulders that shook with laughter, of dark brown curls, of sharp smirking sarcastic eyes under a scarred eyebrow, Thomas can finally breathe again.

He wonders, in the absent introspective fashion that teenagers do sometimes, if his mother’s sudden disappearance from his life had left him with an Issue or Two. He promptly Suppresses This As Well.

“You’re never around dude.” Minho says when Thomas jogs up to them after another day away, finding them this time lounging outside the deli that served the _worst_ cup of coffee on the planet, despite the sign in the window declaring the exact opposite. Liar.

Thomas scratches his neck. “Yeah. Summer school sucks.” He mumbles and nearby Newt somehow manages to make the act of chewing seem frustrated. Thomas and the deli were both liars. At least he was in good company.

“Saved you half.” Teresa says while she hands him the crinkling wax paper wrapped meat-ball sub. Their mutual favorite.

“Made you something.” Minho says, poking Thomas’s shoulder and holding his fist out. Thomas offered up his open palm and Minho let a small folded piece of paper fall into his waiting fingers. Thomas unfolds it. ‘You’re a idiot.’ written in big block letters across the scrap.

“You like it?” Minho asks.

“I love it.” Thomas says, refolding it. “A truly inspired take. Modern art.”

“Are you sure? I feel like you’re just saying that.”

“No, really, I love it.” Thomas assures him.

“Newt helped.”

“I figured.”

-

Thomas throws himself into the weekend with relief. He soaks it all up. The garbage on the street corner and the moving poster screens that glitch and were missing pixels. The swaying trees in the park and the front lawn parties and Thomas doesn’t even _bother_ to think about how he isn’t able to do his homework.

(He’d left his school-issued tablet in his locker because he was nervous it would get stolen.)

Summer was in full swing and all the young people can do is _party_.

On a sun soaked Saturday the four of them ride their bikes down the bright streets they’d grown up on and to Thomas the familiarity of it all feels like a cold drink of guilt-laced-water after a long lonely walk in the desert.

Teresa biking right in front of him, one of the straps from her overall shorts unclipped and swinging behind her like a pendulum clock ticking out the seconds until they find out that he’s not just a liar but also a _traitor_. (Which is the worst thing, the absolute _worst_ thing a person could be.) Thomas’s legs push harder, ignoring their shouts as he speeds ahead and then he stands up on the pedals and off the seat as well. Closes his eyes and just letting himself hear the whistle of air in his ears and the wind on his face.

And then there’s a squeal of tires on asphalt and his eyes snap open just in time to see the car inches in front of him screech to a halt. He swerves on his bike, falling to the ground with a hard _smack_ and sliding. Feeling gravel imbed and he definitely loses a layer of skin and maybe a year off his life as well.

“ _Jesus Christ kid_. What the fuck do you think your doing?” The man in his early twenties driving the car screams. Him and his friend pile out of the low-ride and advance towards Thomas as he lay sprawled on the road, because in their part of town the first reaction to fear is anger, and judging by the man’s fury Thomas must’ve scared the shit out of him.

There’s three identical grinds of bike breaks and then Minho is jogging in front of Thomas with his shoulders thrown back and chest puffed out and Teresa’s fingers are practically extending into claws and Newt is kneeling next to him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Your friend got a fucking death wish?” The man snapped at Minho while gesturing to Thomas, neck chorded and standing out as he stepped forward and Thomas tries to get to his feet, palms stinging.

Newt pushes him back down and then turns to stare at the men with a snarl, showing his face fully for the first time. “Try it.”

The man’s friend taps his shoulder and holds him back just as Minho’s arms are tensing. “Nah man, leave it. That’s Matt’s kid. Vince’s nephew. He’s with Ximena and Alby and Dan.” The friend says and the man who was about to beat the living crap out of Thomas let’s his eyes travel to Newt’s face.

“Oh.” He says and Minho and Teresa let their shoulders drop at the change in his tone. (Because, remember now, tone is everything.) “My bad.” He looks down at Thomas with contempt and then shrugs his friend’s hand off his shoulder. “Watch the fuck where you’re going kid.” He turns and nods at Newt, adding, with markedly less aggression. “Your uncle getting out soon?”

Thomas’s bike wheels are still spinning where it lay on its side. _Tap-tap-tap-tap_.

Newt’s jaw clenches and even though it is a lie he nods, because he knew how these things worked. “Soon.”

The man nods back. “Tell Alby Mikey says hey.”

Newt’s hand on Thomas’s shoulder tightens. “Alright.”

 _Tap-tap-tap-tap_.

They get back into their car with slamming doors and screaming tires and are gone. Minho lets out a huge breath and Thomas falls back fully onto the asphalt, head thumping against the hard surface.

“Dude thank god for reputation.” Minho says weakly and Teresa lets out a faint laugh laced with relief.

Newt squeezed his shoulder again and looked at Thomas with flashing eyes, muttering a quiet “You trying to get yourself killed?” 

And then all three of them are staring down at Thomas, giving him that Look, the one with the capital L that people had been doing recently and the Blue in Thomas’s stomach sloshes and ripples.

 _Tap-tap-tap-tap_.

“Nah.” Thomas says to the sky.

They gather around him and pick him up, and were off again.

Because, a warm summer day when you are seventeen and with your best friends can, in many ways, last forever.

First to the convenience store to buy band aids and popsicles, the cheapest thing in the place. Newt’s (grape) melting down his wrist before rubbing it on Thomas’s shirt and laughing as he squeaked.

“If you could do one of the new Virtual Simulations, what would you do?” Teresa asks the group as they lay in the grassy park after they had patched Thomas up from his fall. The shade from the tree they lounged under dancing in shifting patterns across their bodies. Every once in a while sunlight glints in Thomas’s eyes.

“Flying.” Minho says instantly. “They have a VR-sim for flying. Just saw something online about it yesterday. I wanna go as fast and as high as I can.”

Newt shakes his head and Thomas next to him feels the flick of his hair against his cheek. He hadn’t realized they were lying that close together. “I’d want to do one of those past ones. Like, go back in time. Mess around. See what it was like.” Newt says, and then his elbow is gently nudging Thomas’s ribs. He turns, Newt already looking at him, and their faces are _inches_ apart. Something catches in his throat. Newt’s eyes drift down to his mouth. The temperature spikes.

Thomas breaks first, turning back to the canopy of leaves and sky, letting out a long slow breath. “Underwater.” He drums his fingers against his chest. A hollow sound. “I’d go under the water.” It would be peaceful, he imagined. He could lie there on the bottom and watch the light play off the surface of the waves from deep down. He looks to Teresa. “What about you T?”

The wilting grass tickled his cheeks and filled the air with a sweet light smell. Thomas was more than a little afraid to turn back and see if Newt was still staring at him. 

Teresa’s fingers still from the small braid she’d been weaving absentmindedly as she gazed up. “I’d do one of the past ones too. But I wouldn’t fuck around.”

“What would you do then?” Minho asks Teresa. Thomas watches one, two, three drones. All heading in different directions. The sun beat down and the trees planted a hundred years ago refuse to die.

“Warn them.” Teresa says, and nothing more.

They run into Gally (fuck) and Fry while they’re lounging in an abandoned parking lot, Minho and Newt and Thomas playing keep away with an empty can that rattled and clanked satisfyingly against the blacktop while Teresa squints and mutters and practices her graffiti on a crumbling concrete barrier.

“Hey.” Gally calls from his car and they look up. 

“Hey Fry, Gal. What’re you doing?” Newt calls amicably as the four of them stand and group together. Their interest a siren song drawing them in closer to the car. 

Gally shrugs. “Trying to sell some parts. But trying to sell them _quietly_ you know?”

The four of them nod like a ripple effect. Fry and Gally look at them, then at each other. Fry raises his eyebrows and shrugs. Gally sighs.

“Listen. The pawn shop off of third? They’ll give us the best price. But cops have been watching the place. We just drove by and there’s a ‘undercover’-so fucking obvious, why do they bother-car there right now.” He narrows his eyes. “Tell you what,” Gally says as he takes a last drag of his cigarette before flicking it away. “You guys make a distraction, I’m in and out, and I give you the bottle of vodka I have in my trunk.” 

There is a moment of silence as the four of them exchange glances. In a choreographed motion tinted with childhood, they bent their heads together. Throwing their arms around each other’s shoulders and huddling in a circle. 

Minho and Newt’s heads pop up and look at the two in the car. Then back down. More whispering. Thomas and Teresa’s pop up. Then back down. The whispering continues. 

All four pop up. A moment of silence.

Four heads pop down together again. “Fucking _twisted_.” Gally says, scrubbing his face and Fry hushes him.

“Leave em’ alone Gal. Seventeen and scheming.” He grins and motions towards them. “Remember when you and me and Dan and Ben used to do this stuff?” He teases as Thomas and the others hiss frantically, skating words and hushed shouting over each other and only fragments escaping the closed circuit. 

“Well if _you_ just-“ 

“It was one time don’t get it twisted-“ 

“Again with the teddy bear?” 

“It’s like you’re not even _considering_ it-“ 

Tap-tap-tapping went their words like the rattle from a spray can and after a few minutes Thomas’s head pops up and he looks at Gally with narrowed eyes. The other three follow in quick succession.

“We accept.” Thomas says and Gally rolls his eyes so hard he’s in danger of passing out. Fry smiles, maybe remembering days like this of his own. 

(“I _LIVE_ TO SKATE!” Minho screamed as he rocketed past the cops on Sonya’s old skateboard, wobbling and crashing into a bunch of garbage cans, successfully distracting the cops long enough for Gally to slip in and out of the store. Minho was always doing that, showing off in front of Gally, now that Thomas took a minute and thought about it.)

The vodka they sip tastes bitter and victorious and Teresa bounces in front of them, skipping down the street on her wedge heels.

Thomas picked imitation apple juice as his chase for the alcohol, trading between the sharp burn of cheap booze and the sickly sweet of processed fake sugar. He knew it was Newt’s favorite and it gave Thomas an excuse to share the bottle with him. Making sure his lips brushed the same spot as Newt’s. 

From there they grab their bikes and head along the large wide tree-shaded two-lane streets, shouting and booing when the hover cars that were few and far between drove past. Because anyone that could afford anti-grav tech _definitely_ didn’t belong in their part of the city. (Not like how it belonged to them.)

Falling to the back, Thomas watches the three of them, and time slows down.

Minho raises his arms off his handles like he’s imagining himself flying. Teresa and her bike’s front basket carrying the rest of their drinks and daisy flowers she’d picked at the park. Newt, standing up on his pedals, weaving between the two of them, drawing long smooth waves on the road with his wheels, shirt whipping out behind on the breeze.

And Thomas watching all three of them, tastes sunlight and heartache on his tongue.

(Nostalgia- a word of Greek origin that means both ‘Homecoming’ or, it’s literal translation; ‘The pain from a old wound’ his brain supplies for him helpfully.)

They head to the local sandwich shop that their parents had gone to before them on days similar to this one. Minho valiantly offering up his last credits so that they could split a large order of fries. Sitting at one of the old tables under a striped red and white umbrella and watching the TV in the window.

“So where next?” Teresa asks while chewing on a stray fry.

“How about the skate park?” Thomas answers while digging in the bottom of the bag for any extras. He finds one and pops it in his mouth with a grin. “You know, I hear Minho lives to skate.”

Newt nods gravely. “I’ve heard that too.”

They ditch their bikes and ride the bus to the water tower. Sprawling across the back three rows and having bubble blowing contests with the gum from Teresa’s backpack. Minho wins. (Mostly because he pops anyone else’s bubble any time they get close to beating him.) The four of them climbing to the top of the rusted contraption and sitting with their legs hanging down. Looking over their massive city to Atlas floating in the distance, talking about what they would do, or buy, or experience if they had been born with more luck.

“I’d take everyone off it. Blow the whole thing up. Let those fucks up there try and spin it on the ground like the rest of us.” Newt offered after taking a deep inhale of the joint moving between them. They laughed, because, honestly, could you imagine? Someone from Atlas on _their_ block? (Thomas’s laugh is weaker than the others.)

“Nah those rich bastards are alright.” Minho said, tapping ash and watching it flutter far below them. “Just naïve.”

Teresa grinned, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Just don’t blow anything up before I get a chance to loot.”

“Valid.” Minho agrees with an aggressive nod.

“Crazy to think that Miyoko is up there right now.” Newt offers and the other three nod in understanding. They’d all gone to school with her, the super-star runner only two grades above them.

“You think she’s gonna really do it? Make the record? She only needs like, one more gold to have the most Olympic medals ever.” Minho says.

Teresa shivers in excitement as she absently doodles her tag with a massive felt tip marker, the smooth metal surface of the water tower a perfect canvas. “Just think about how _dope_ it’d be if she does. Someone from the block, up there, just absolutely destroying everyone else.”

“Valid.” Minho agreed, scratching his head vigorously.

“She will.” Newt says with another nod, more to himself than the others. And then he turns to Thomas, setting light catching in his eyes and soft smile on his face. “She’ll show all of them.” 

Thomas gnaws on his lip and Newt nods again, just once in encouragement, and for a second Thomas feels brave enough to tell Minho and Teresa everything. That he’d been lying for weeks (months) and that every day he crossed the checkpoints and that every day he accepted charity from rich people that gave him scholarships and money just to make themselves feel better.

The setting sun washes the world in copper, the light reflecting off the glass of the buildings below forcing them to squint. In the back of his mind a tiny voice whispers _traitor_. They hang suspended, halfway between the ground and the future.

It didn’t matter. Newt could think whatever he wanted, but Thomas understood enough of the world to know he wasn’t going to get in, anyway.

Thomas swallows and shakes his head and Newt lets out a small sigh before frowning. “You’re bleeding.” He says, and Thomas looks down at his scraped palms, the road rash and cuts from his fall split open. “Here-“ Newt takes Thomas’s hands in his and presses them against his own side, letting his black T-shirt soak up the pricks of blood.

“But your shirt-“ Thomas objects and Newt rolls his eyes.

“It’s a black t-shirt, it’s fine. Besides, might use it to clone you.” He says with a grin. “Maybe between two Thomas’s, you can both carry that weight of the world you’ve got resting on your shoulders.”

Thomas swallows, and lets his thumb rub a small circle on Newt’s rib, just for a second. “Thank you.” He says, and then directly after “I’m sorry.” Thomas isn’t quite sure what he’s apologizing for.

Maybe just himself in general.

They climb down, slowly and maybe a touch dangerously, riding the bus back to their block just as full night descends. Running into Harriet and Sonya and Fry (not Gally, thank god) lounging around outside Alby and Ximena’s front yard, the garage door up and open and a bright light shining down on the engine. Ximena a fixed presence behind the popped hood, occasionally looking up to ask them a question or contribute and Alby on the porch, muttering to himself about oven timers going off and ungrateful kids that eat him out of house and home.

“COWA-” Sonya starts the second they walk through the gate, cut off by their groans. She sticks her tongue out at them, adjusting her ponytail before saying matter-of-factly to Newt, “Mom’s pissed.”

Newt frowns. “Why?”

Sonya takes a sip of her pop. “She found my smokes.”

His frown deepened. “You don’t smoke.”

Sonya reached into her sweater pocket, pulling out the cigarettes. “No.” She tossed the pack at Newt who caught it deftly. “But you do smoke, and I covered for you and now you owe me.” She adds with a smug smile.

Newt’s shoulders dropped. “No.”

“Yes.” Sonya says, already hopping off the porch and walking towards him, arms rising.

(“She’s my half-sister. Different dads.” Newt had said one day a few months after they had met. A throwaway comment over his shoulder while they climbed on the jungle gym in their grade school playground. The rusted metal had felt gritty under Thomas’s fingers.)

“Sonya-” He starts, only to have her cut him off with a massive hug, the girl wrapping her arms around Newt’s side and snuggling into her big brother, holding him tight despite his stiff posture. “Are you done?” Newt asks with just a hint of teasing warmth in his tone.

“Nope.” She says, squeezing him tighter with a happy smile. “You know the rules. Full sixty seconds.”

Newt surrenders, patting her back twice lightly. “Thanks.” He mumbles.

-

When they’d finally left, long after Sonya and Harriet but before Fry, the group of them paused in front of Teresa’s porch.

Minho yawned “I’m out.” Slapping palms and practically rolling down the street towards bed.

“You coming home?” Teresa asked Thomas as she turned towards her front door, swaying on the pavement from the drugs and the alcohol and the day that had lasted a lifetime.

Thomas looked over at Newt, his shadow cast long under the street light, eyes hooded and flashing. Arms crossed and smiling playfully. Same plain t-shirt and jeans and sneakers as always.

Thomas swallowed, throat like sandpaper. “Nah.”

-

In the back of their abandoned garage Newt’s breathing was starting to get ragged in a way that Thomas recognizes as his ‘this needs to happen- _now_ ’ pattern. They tangle in the dark, Thomas flat on his back on the ground, Newt’s sweater a makeshift blanket to lie on.

He feels the way Newt shudders over him and he thinks, strangely, of music. Most of the time the neighborhood is the thump of heavy base and the banging of backfiring cars and calling voices and the constant slap of rubber soles against concreate. But sometimes, like now, it got quiet. The entire universe, their whole big, burnt, used up world narrowing down to the pinpricks of Newt’s dilating pupils.

Thomas leans up, tilting towards the lips ghosting under his jaw in a frenzy with a desperate edge to his movements. Newt grinds their still jean covered hips together and Thomas arches up with a bit-lip muffled cry, hands fisting into Newt’s hair and pulling. Because he might actually physically die from it, from wanting someone this badly. Newt abandons the soft spot under his jaw to kiss him, long and scorching and when he pulls back to breathe Thomas’s hands rake through his hair.

“Oh fuck.” Newt mutters weakly and the sound is so shattered and filled with longing that it carries even over the roaring of blood in Thomas’s ear and he surges forward, latching his mouth onto Newt’s pulse point. “Oh _fuck_.” Newt says again, and then, when he realizes that Thomas is still sucking, he taps Thomas’s shoulder to get him to let go

“Hey-no marks.” Newt says soft and ragged.

But Thomas doesn’t hear because _youyouyouyou_ is slamming through his brain on loop.

“Hey-fuck-“ Newt says, but Thomas is too tripped up on the pale skin under his teeth and something bubbling in his stomach that had replaced the Blue that lived there. Chased away by Newt, and Newt’s smile, and Newt’s eyes watching him until Thomas couldn’t take it anymore.

And then Newt is shoving him off and jerking backwards, sitting up and away from him.

“What are you doing?” Newt’s lips spill the words, pushing Thomas away from him further before pressing his hand to his own neck as if he could feel if Thomas had left a mark. The action stings, rejection and guilt bubbling together, making him see _red_.

Because, of course no marks. Otherwise someone might _know_.

The world comes crashing down around him and suddenly the thumping bass is there and the cars are backfiring and someone is yelling in the distance. Thomas sits up and grabs his shirt, jamming his head and arms through the openings, temper rising and a headache starting to pound behind his eyes. Without a word, he gets up and walks swiftly over to the exit, throwing the lock back and jerking the door open.

“What the fuck is _wrong_ with you these days?” Newt snaps unevenly, still holding his neck and visibly spinning from the absolute mess that Thomas had rapidly devolved into.

 _Youyouyouyouyou_. Thomas doesn’t fire back.

Thomas slams the door closed behind him, leaving the words unspoken and trapped in the room with Newt. He walks until he reaches Minho’s house and falls asleep on the couch in the backyard.

Only to wake up to the sight of Minho and his grandmother staring down at him in the bright morning light. “Minho, why is there a sad boy asleep in our backyard?” She asks him.

Minho shrugs. “You got me Halmoni.” He says. Giving Thomas the Look.

Thomas stutters out an apology and flees from the scene like he’s committed _another_ crime. When he darts down the sidewalk and runs across the street there’s a screech of tires and a honk of a horn, someone yelling for him to get the fuck out of the road. _Third times the charm_ , he thinks absently before exploding into Teresa’s house to find her curled up on the couch, watching the sixth remake of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and lazily picking at her split ends.

“Hey.” She says, eyebrows knit with concern. “You okay? I was worried.”

The guilt, both old and new, mixes with the now sour alcohol in his stomach and he rushes past her, darting to the bathroom. A sharp burst of saliva in his mouth and then his jaw aches and Thomas stumbles, falling in front of the toilet and throwing up until there’s nothing left and he’s dry-heaving, shaking. Tears spring to his eyes and he feels Teresa’s hand between his shoulder blades, rubbing small soothing circles. Thomas tries to remember how to breathe and when he looks down there’s an echo of shock in his head that his stomach contents are the color they are.

In the background, he hears the movie playing on the TV. (“It is such an uncomfortable feeling to know one is a fool.” The wizard of Oz remarked.)

“We should break up.” Thomas croaks out thickly, words covered in stomach acid and guilt.

Teresa’s hand stills on his back and he waits, tiles cool under his fingers. “We’re not together. Not like that, at least.” She says. “Never were.” And then- “I’m worried about you.”

Thomas squeezes his eyes closed. “Alright.” He whispers.

The next day in the shiny chrome and clean classroom that Thomas doesn’t deserve, he notices one of his vibrant classmates (not Brenda, she’d barely given them a glance) eying his split knuckles with hints of interest and fear. Miles and worlds away there was a brick wall on the route between his and Newt’s garage and Minho’s backyard that had some of Thomas’s blood on it. 


	2. Alright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!! This fic is already finished in it's entirety, so I'll be posting the chapters kind of sporadically over the next week or so whenever I have time!!! I'm still fairly new to writing and love feed back so please please if you have thoughts/suggestions/comments let me know!!!

They had started to hate each other. That’s how Thomas pinpoints when everything had tumbled out of control. A few weeks after Paige had called him into her office and placed the entrance exam on her desk in front of him like a gauntlet, (which would make this event roughly last April, if Thomas wasn’t getting it mixed up) everything about Newt was pissing Thomas off.

The way he chewed, the way he drank, the way his lips would curl around a joint. (Thomas started placing himself strategically away from Newt when they circled up, because something about putting his lips on the paper directly after Newt had made Thomas’s skin Itch.) The way Newt’s voice sounded when he woke up from any ten-minute nap caught wherever they were killing time that afternoon would grate in Thomas’s brain.

The feeling was obviously mutual, Newt taking to grinding his teeth anytime Thomas came within a five-foot radius.

It got so bad that Teresa and Minho had stopped inviting them places, the two of them happily ditching Newt and Thomas to see cheap matinée movies or go cruising in Minho’s grandma’s car. Leaving Newt and Thomas alone, which only seemed to make each other angrier and angrier. It hadn’t gotten to physical blows yet but it was _days_ or maybe _hours_ away.

They had _never_ fought like this before. Not any of them.

“I dunno what’s up with you two but figure it out.” Alby had said to Thomas out front of his house on a cloudy spring afternoon. Sending him a sharp gaze had Thomas sputtering, denials and blame on the tip of his tongue and scratching his head fitfully. Alby raised his hand to stem the flow. “I don’t care, but you guys need too just handle it. It’s pissing everyone off.”

So that night Thomas had trudged over to Newt’s house (thirteen houses and three empty lots and something furious between them) under a storm cloud and banged on the grate screen door, an almost identical storm cloud answering.

“What.” Newt snapped by way of greeting, standing there in his usual stupid fucking t-shirt and his usual stupid fucking black jeans, holding the door like he was moments from slamming it closed again. Thomas pushed his tongue into his cheek for a moment to pause the ‘fuck you’ behind his teeth and, instead, points up.

And on the warm April night they’d climbed on top of Newt’s roof using the old trellis as a ladder and lay down silently, looking at the sky. They couldn’t see stars, no way, not with the smog warning and the yellow of the street lights and the general vibe of ‘you’re on your fucking own buddy’ that the universe seemed to give to their planet. But the purple of the pollution looked pretty in the night and as Thomas and Newt lay on the uneven shingles that dug into his back Thomas realized he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world. 

“Newt?” His voice hushed.

“Yeah?” 

“Why do we hate each other now?” Thomas asked the smog miserably. Newt overhears this.

The crickets hummed in the tall grass, a constant background in the quiet. Newt takes a sharp breath in and then holds it. With an aching chest Thomas lets himself melt into the soft glow of the street lights that never shut off. 

A click like pottery shifting and Newt’s turning his head towards him, sharp cheekbones catching the shadows and holding them there. A light breeze ruffles his hair and Thomas remembers, quite suddenly, that he has homework due tomorrow that he hadn’t finished yet. 

“Newt.” He says again, and then “I don’t get it.” because he’s on the verge of tears and hates himself for it, hates Newt for pushing him to that point. Just _hates_ , full stop. Newt was his best friend. Newt was his _best friend_. Who made him feel like he belonged.

Newt, who had pulled the bigger kids off Thomas with a snarl on his face the first day of school after only knowing him for a morning. The two of them had held it together in a playground brawl against three boys double their size until Minho and Teresa had shown up. One of the guys who had jumped Thomas, all grown up now, still had two faint scars along his cheek from Teresa’s nails.

(“We wrecked ‘em.” Newt had said with a bloody nose in the principal’s office, ‘wrecked’ sounding like ‘wec-ked’ around the gap in his teeth and offering a bright grin and a high five. In that moment nine-year-old Thomas would’ve died for him.)

“Newt.” Thomas says, heart aching, and reaches out to grab the other boy’s shoulder and shake the friendship back into him.

He kisses Newt instead. 

He doesn’t realize he’s doing it until he’s already done it, and Newt’s soft inhale against his lips is seared into Thomas’s mind forever.

The moment hangs and neither of them move until a car backfires and they jump apart. Newt looks at him in the dark with eyes twice their normal size, swallowing compulsively. 

“I-” Thomas croaks out and then stops. The world was ending, (a bit earlier than originally thought) why was no one screaming? 

Newt twitches like he’s going to hit him and Thomas expects it, maybe even _welcomes_ it, his eyes fluttering closed and waiting for the pain.

Instead warm chapped lips, sweet from imitation apple juice, brush his hesitantly.

Again, firmer, fingers ghosting along his neck to cup under his jaw. Both of Newt’s lips catching more of Thomas’s bottom one, and Newt corrects it, dragging him own lips up to slot in place perfectly and holding them there for one shaking shining moment.

And then Thomas’s eyes are fluttering _open_ and he’s winding his fingers in Newt’s belt loops and suddenly the air _stifling_ and Newt’s mouth is frantic on his and Thomas wants nothing more than to feel the night breeze on the skin of his bare shoulder blades. Newt moves to roll on top of him and a loose shingle breaks free, clicking down the roof to fall and smash on the ground and they jerk away from each other like they’ve been burned. Staring in mutual struck-dumb shock for a long silent moment.

“Isaac? Thomas?” Newt’s mother calls from below.

Their heads swivel towards the sound and Newt slides down to the eves of the slanted roof, Thomas right behind him. They pop their heads over the edge as one and Newt’s mother smile/frowned up at them. “Try to not bring the ceiling down around our heads, won’t you, loves?” She asks and Thomas nods his head like a jackhammer.

“Sorry.” Newt chokes out and she frowns at his tone.

“I gotta go anyways, sorry Mrs. N.” Thomas mumbles and climbs down the single-story house, (careful of the shingles-he reminds himself numbly.) hopping to the ground and breaking into a run the minute he knew that Newt wouldn’t be able to see.

Twenty minutes later he paced his room frantically and kinda wondering, just a little bit, _where the fuck that had come from_. The old laptop that’d he’d bought to fix up lay smashed at his feet, hair standing out all over his head from running his hands through it. He heard the front door snap open then closed and he panics, because Teresa and her mom must be back early and they could read him like a book and _where the fuck had that come from_.

Instead, Newt stumbles into Thomas’s borrowed bedroom, eyes wide and glazed, moving like he was sleepwalking.

“I-” Thomas choked.

Newt touched his forearm and Thomas stills, looking at him and actually _feeling_ how big his own eyes were getting. He must look like a bug. Newt licked his lips. “Is Teresa or her mom here?” Whispered hoarsely. Thomas shakes his head, left to right, everything in his brain turning to static.

Newt bites his lip. “Will they be back soon?”

Left to right, left to right.

Thomas had never for a minute understood why anyone would try the harder chemical drugs that occasionally floated through their neighbourhood. He’d seen what they’d done to his mom, to the people she hung out with. How it would eat them up from the inside out.

But if it felt anything like the pure _singing_ in his veins when Newt’s hand reached up, cupping the back of his head, the other wrapping around his waist, leaning in slowly and kissing him? Then yeah, alright.

Thomas could dig that.

-

The classrooms at A.I were painted a beautiful shade of grey, high gloss and rich and blending with the wood paneling in a wonderfully complementary style.

“Now, if we want to examine societal history on a more…personal scale, can anyone tell me the events that led to our city’s checkpoint separation and borough system-which has now been adapted all over the continent, I might add- to be used as a successful urban planning model?” The teacher asked the students sitting in rows of desks in front of him. Probably at least a little bit aware of the fact that Thomas would trade almost anything to punch him in his smug face.

(One quick look over at Brenda’s stone-stiff shoulders made Thomas wonder just where the police were going to find this guy’s body.)

He took a deep, slow breath in. And then out. Sitting determinedly at his desk and trying to remind himself that decking the teacher was a pretty good way to get himself expelled.

A girl raised her hand. “The checkpoint system was first put in place during the pandemic of 2103. When there was civil unrest throughout the city because of the MEV-2 virus, they used the checkpoints as a way to control and quarantine the spread of MEV-2 as well as stop the riots and keep everyone safe.” The girl said, lowering her arm when she was finished. Their rat-faced teacher nodded. 

“And why did the checkpoints remain?” 

A different girl put up their hand and the teacher gestured for her to continue. “After the pandemic was under control there was still a lot of civil unrest, especially in the lower socio-economic boroughs. The police weren’t able to control the various crime groups that had sprung up so they kept the checkpoints in place to make sure that the criminals weren’t moving between the different parts of the city. So the checkpoints stayed, and they still keep us safe today, making sure that everyone is where they’re supposed to be. And that no one comes into the city centre without having the security clearance.” 

Brenda snorted quietly next to him, and even though she was smiling with wide open lips and teeth flashing her hands were clenched into fists. “Funny how they forget to mention that the riots were about medical supplies being withheld and that the only thing the police did was take bribes.” She smiled harder, teeth in danger of shattering, words harsh and whispered through the cracks. “Those ‘crime groups’ were just people trying to protect their families when everything had gone to _shit_.” 

With marked effort and a deep inhale-exhale Thomas uncurled his own fingers and watched the blood rush back to his knuckles. “You know what they say. History’s written by the winners. And they’re the winners.” He muttered, looking dead at the teachers sneering face. “For now.”

Thomas’s hands don’t stop clenching and unclenching until the bell rings. Next to him Brenda’s tablet is bare, but there is a burning city drawn in the corner.

His day couldn’t get much worse.

“You’re from one of the boroughs, right? Past the checkpoints?” The kid asks him while Thomas sits alone in the cafeteria, hands in his pockets and mutinously cursing Brenda for abandoning him. He day could, in fact, get worse. It could always seem to get worse.

‘Got a meeting with the physics teacher. Apparently one of my designs is making real waves.’ Brenda had said before swaggering away from him at the lunch bell, cocky and loud and looking like a burn mark on all of the glossy surfaces of the hallway. Leaving him to brave the cafeteria and the stares and the weird, _weird_ food alone.

(His cafeteria at home is busted and awful but has doors that lead right out into the court yard. Teresa would sit on one of the metal grate tables and throw processed _something_ for them to catch in their mouths. Minho was the best at it. Newt would try and shove Thomas out of his way whenever it was Thomas’s turn, hands wrapping around his wrists and tugging playfully, the two of them laughing. Sometimes Harriet and Sonya and Beth would be there too, tossing acorns as potential projectiles for added challenge.)

Thomas looked over at the skinny kid with freckles and green eyes that had been watching him for days. “Yeah.” He grunts. It barely carries over the clang and chatter of the students around him, and it seemed to Thomas that, without fail, everyone but him was happy.

“That’s so fucking data.” The boy says, looking at Thomas with something close to awe.

(The cafeteria here is spotless with shining cutlery that is actual real metal. Long tables and lines and lines of food and machines that whirl and hum smoothly to life, and Thomas sits alone.)

“Is it?” Thomas asks. He scrunches up his nose and contemplates just leaving and being hungry instead. His anger management skills weren’t able to roll with the rest of him these days. His knuckles still itched from where they’d split against brick after the fucking _disaster_ that had been his and Newt’s most recent interaction a few days ago.

The boy’s face went blank and his eyebrows rose and maybe looked a tiny bit terrified. “No! I mean, not that it’s not, uh, great that you’re from past the checkpoint. It’s, uh, just cool that you’re here too you know? And-and Janson, he’s an ass. He was _way_ out of line. Not everyone here thinks that the checkpoints are a good idea. Like, they’re always talking about wealth re-distribution and how it’s the future and stuff, and it’s…uh…” He trailed off like a battery dying under Thomas’s unimpressed stare. Thomas resists the impulse to point out that, wealth redistribution was a great idea and all, but then why was there only Brenda and him versus the other forty something kids in the program?

“I’m Aris?” The boy offers, a last ditched attempt. Thomas quirks his eyebrow.

“Thomas.” He says with a nod before turning back to look at the strange, beige cube of food that looked a bit like the pieces of tofu that floated in Minho’s grandmother’s soup but tasted like _nothing_. (The exact opposite of Minho’s grandmother’s food. Just thinking about the bubbling red stew made Thomas’s mouth water and wished he was in her kitchen at this moment. With a pang, he realized the other three probably were. And he was here.)

Aris laughed quietly to himself. “Yeah…I uh, I know.” _Everyone knows who you are_.

Thomas stared determinedly down at the strange cube of food and pokes it, watching it jiggle and contemplating trying ‘molecular-gastronomy-Mediterranean’ instead, whatever the fuck that was, or maybe the ‘Cuban-sushi fusion sphere’s’ that everyone was yelling about. “Aris?” He says and Aris perks up.

“Yeah?”

“What the fuck is with this food?” He asks and Aris frowns, confused.

“Well, it’ll taste gross if you eat it plain.” Aris says and Thomas blinks at him. Aris bites his lip and stares at Thomas.

He taps his fork against his plate, a dull clanking sound that reminded him of chain link fences. “Is there a rule against food just being _food_?”

“Do you wanna sit with us?” Aris asks instead of answering him.

Thomas thinks ‘No’ and then ‘ _Fuck_ no’.

He looks down at his plate. It looks sadly back at him and a headache starts behind his eyes. “Alright.” Thomas sighs.

Aris practically vibrates. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Rachel and Winston and Aris blink at him like people looking into a fish tank and Thomas is very quickly deciding that he’s going to murder Brenda. He feels himself scowl and pokes at the cube violently with his fork, picking off a tiny corner. “You have to add a flavour.” Aris says and when he looks up at the three of them sitting on one side of the long lunchroom table and him on the other, he almost laughs before scowling.

“What? Like sauce?” Brenda says as she throws herself down next to Thomas. (All thoughts of murder gone in an instant and he resists the urge to hug her. He didn’t fancy a black eye.) The three kids across from them lean back further. Brenda notices. “We don’t bite.” She snaps, teeth flashing and possibly disproving her statement.

“Flavour pod.” Winston squeaks before holding up a small square of bright orange liquid encased in plastic.

“Flavour pod.” Thomas says.

“Yeah. You add it.” Winston nods frantically.

“Instead of just, you know, making food?” Brenda drawls with a quirked eyebrow.

There is an extended moment of silence. No one is comfortable. No one really knows what to do. Thomas wasn’t equipped to deal with this. No one was equipped to deal with this. He wished he had left Paige’s office with the tablet screen blank and walked to the park with his three best friends, life intact. And maybe because he’s so exhausted, and worn out, and sleep deprived, his head-mouth filter doesn’t kick in this time.

“Why do rich people make things so complicated?” Thomas dully asks the group at large. Brenda raises her eyebrows and gives him a ‘are you tilted you’re blowing our cover.’ look. He shrugs at her.

Aris sputters. Winston looks, if possible, even more uncomfortable and unequipped to deal with this, or maybe just Thomas in general (he seemed to have that effect on people). But Rachel, surprisingly, smiles.

“Too much time on our hands.” She says ruefully before picking up one of the plastic jelly squares on her tray, tearing a tiny hole in the corner. “You just pour this on the basic cube and it tastes like whatever the pod flavour is.” She explained while demonstrating the act. There is a moment of silence around the table. “It seems weird but it’s actually really data. Super eco-friendly too, everything’s recyclable and minimal water usage. And you can still have whatever you want, you know?” She looks at Thomas and then Brenda. “Do you like truffle?”

Thomas and Brenda look at each other, commiserating. Thomas thinks ‘No’ and then ‘ _Fuck_ no’ but what he says is “I don’t know.”

Rachel smiles again, cheeks dimpling. “It’s really good. Here, have mine.” She offers.

-

The bags that are forming under his eyes from the combination of trying to keep school on lock and not trip up with his block are the first thing to draw the attention of the Look’s capital L that Thomas is receiving on the daily.

The Blue that is sloshing in his stomach and working its way up through his throat is the second. Thomas is scared that if he opens his mouth to speak it would splat out onto the concrete.

“Are you okay Tom?” Teresa asks him one day when she finds him sitting and staring at his shoes in the park near her house. His notes are typed out on an old cracked tablet that he had fixed up himself and shoved in his backpack. He was so tired of hiding it and hiding everything.

(Harriet had stumbled on him dumpster diving for parts in the alley behind the pool hall where she worked in her concession stand uniform and had raised her eyebrows at him, gestured vaguely with her hands and saying, “Do you ever just try to…not?” Thomas had sighed. But he’d found the parts he needed between the dumpster and the pawn shop so it was still, officially, a Good Day. He was still trying to ‘not’, vaguely. But it wasn’t really working.)

Thomas nods dully up at Teresa in the park and then shrugs, a glitch in the system. He was okay, maybe. She hums and sits down next to him, crossing her legs and digging in her bright red and neon green cherry-and-stem purse. Pulling out items while she searches and shoving them into his waiting hands, a long since perfected dance between the two of them.

Lip-gloss, a glittery shade of purple. A lighter with stars stuck all over it. A crushed pack of smokes, half empty. A small blue flask that Thomas and Minho and Newt had pooled their money and gotten for her as a birthday present. House keys. Gum. And finally-

“An apple?” Thomas asks with raised eyebrows. She nods.

“Mhm. An apple. Eat it.” She commanded, taking back her other items, pulling the flask from his fingers as he starts to spin the cap off. “Nuh-huh.” She says and he scowls.

“Why?” He asks, pouting like a toddler.

“We, the committee, have reached an agreement.” Teresa declares primly, piling her hair on top of her head and tying it up. Thomas takes a bite of the apple- _holy shit that tastes good_ _-_ and chews, crunching in the silence for a minute, looking at Teresa sharply.

“T is this a real apple?”

“Mhm.”

“Shit…thanks.”

Thomas looked down, touched. A _real_ apple. Not one of the mass-grown GMO clones. “And what has the committee decided?” He asked, playing along. Raising his voice over the sound of a car zooming past them and leaving a sickening smell of burning rubber. Teresa scrunches her nose at it.

“That we all need a low-key night.” A different voice answers. Thomas turned. Newt and Minho were wandering over to them with easy slow pace and smiles, but Newt’s was pulled tight at the corner and strained. They stop in front of Thomas and Teresa and look down at them, identical stances, hands in their pockets and shoulders relaxed. Mirrored motions giving away the life-time of friendship.

“Well if the committee says so.” Thomas sighs, caving.

“Unanimously.” Minho grins, offering his hand to Teresa and pulling her up. “Although, credit for the idea has to go to Newt. _He_ says it’s because ‘Thomas needs a night off.’ And ‘Thomas needs to get some sleep.’ And ‘Thomas doesn’t look so good.’ but I’ve got my suspicions that the old guy just can’t keep up with us. Using you as an excuse.”

Something inside Thomas flutters weakly.

Newt reaches down, pulling Thomas up and avoiding his wide-eyed stare before Minho dragged him over, tucking Thomas under his shoulder and steering them down the weaving cement path. “Newt’s got it on lock though.” He peered at Thomas. “No offense dude, but you kinda look like shit.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Come on.” Teresa says, leading the way. “My mom’s got the night shift so we have the place to ourselves. It’s time to watch a movie. We’ve been hitting it hard and shit’s been thick lately.”

“What movie?” Thomas asks.

Teresa brightens “How about a classic?”

The three of them groaned at her. They all knew.

“Dude why do we always have to watch the _remakes_ of “The Wizard of Oz.’, why can’t we just watch the original?” Minho points out.

“Because.” Teresa says primly. “The original is the best one. We save the original for when we _need_ the original. How about the fifth one?”

The three of them groan in unison again.

“Okay it’s a reboot, don’t get it tilted. Still good.” Teresa defended.

“Debatable.”

“Understatement.”

“Valid.”

Half-way through the four of them slumping on the couches and floor of Teresa’s house and around the crunch of chips, Teresa says, off-handily, “You guys know that Tom and I aren’t together, you know, _like that_ , right?” And continues to watch the flickering screen and swing her legs over the edge of the love-seat that she lay lengthwise along as if her three best friends aren’t simultaneously suffering from brain aneurisms.

“What?” Minho sputters from his sprawled position on the floor before looking between Thomas and Teresa like they were a Grand Prix tennis match. “Really?”

Teresa nods, still looking at the screen. “Mhm. Just keep it with core four for now though, okay?” She says easy breezily.

Minho nods once, blinking, drumming his fingers before casting his gaze to Thomas, eyebrows raised.

Thomas, who was currently trying to restart his heart with willpower alone. Thomas, who was wondering just when Teresa had decided this. Thomas, who thought there might be a knowing glint to Teresa’s eyes.

“Yup.” Thomas manages to sputter. Minho give a delayed ‘Huh. Okay then.’ nod of his head and the matter is settled. Maybe. His eyes were moving pretty fast between the two of them. Today his t-shirt sports a massive clenched fist and a banner declaring ‘Unite behind the science, take action, do the impossible’.

When thirty seconds of dead silence had passed, Thomas gets up the courage to look at Newt sitting next to him on their own couch.

And Newt is just staring at him. Laser-X-ray-Hubble-Telescope level staring, as if Thomas had grown three heads or shrunk down to the size of an ant or declared himself king of the fucking world or maybe raised Venice from the below the water like a modern-day Atlantis.

And then That Smile, the slow little smile, the same one he gave Thomas directly after they were done what they’d done. But this time, instead of it disappearing, it stayed. And stayed. And stayed.

Even when Newt turned back to the screen, it stayed. And Thomas watched him. And then he settles back into the bright fabric covered couch, eyes unfocused on the movie, drawn instead to the small scented candle flickering where it sat on the beat-up coffee table. Something deep in his chest loosening and his head is nodding and his eyelids are doing that thing where they were not to be trusted.

He doesn’t realize he’s falling asleep until he wakes up in the dark room hours later. There’s a hum of the TV turned down low in the background and Thomas inhales deeply, familiar comforting scent of sunshine and sagebrush invading his senses and soft cotton against his cheek.

His eyes pop open and Thomas sits up with a jerk. He’d not only fallen asleep against Newt’s shoulder, he’d drooled on him spectacularly. And wasn’t that just the story of his life. Newt tried to fight the small smirk on his face and lost. The TV the only source of light, casting the room in a shadowy blue glow that Thomas didn’t particular enjoy.

“Hey there comatose.” Newt said, rolling the shoulder that Thomas had been dribbling on, trying to wake it back up again.

Thomas cleared his throat. “Uh.”

“Eloquent as always.”

“I’m a regular Shakespeare.” He muttered, rubbing his eyes and yawning. “Where’s Minho and Teresa?” The scented candle had burned out, but the mellow flowers-and-chemical smell lingered.

“Min went home and Teresa went to bed-fuck-” Newt yawned as well, scowling at Thomas in the dull blue light.

“Got ya.” Thomas said smugly.

“That’s not how that works, you don’t make other people yawn when you yawn.”

Thomas shook his head stubbornly, taking up their long-standing argument like a familiar football to toss between them. “It’s been _proven_.”

“I’m not buying it.” Newt says, watching the news.

Thomas shakes his head like a dog. “No it’s a real thing! It’s a type of ‘echophenomenon’. It’s to do with your brain and automatic imitation and brain functi- _Teresa and I aren’t together Newt_.”

The words tumble out of him and leave Thomas wondering when his mind and his mouth had lost their signal connection and why he was throwing proverbial footballs at Newt’s face.

Newt blinked at him before raising his eyebrows. “Yeah. I was there. You know, a few hours ago?”

“No.” Thomas shook his head. “You don’t get it. No-not, not just _now_. Never. We were never, uh. We just…just let-because…well…”

Newt’s eyebrows were in danger of disappearing into his hairline. This upset Thomas, in an absent fashion. He loved Newt’s eyebrows. “No, yeah. I always knew. Well, not always. But. I knew.” Newt said as he rubbed his shoulder and watched Thomas sputter.

“You did?” Thomas asks, focusing in on Newt’s fingers kneaded the muscle.

“Yeah.” Newt says quietly, turning back to the TV.

Thomas wanted to look away, mostly to stop looking at Newt, but his only other option was the television. Staring at the bright screen in the dark room made him dizzy, and his stomach was already rolling from all the colors inside him mixing together. (This is, at least, what he tells himself.) “How?” Thomas asks the single word soft. Maybe everyone was right about him needing to work on his vocabulary.

Newt sighed and then smiled, shoulders hunching in a defensive gesture and leaning forward, stubbornly watching the news. “You wouldn’t cheat Thomas. That’s just not who you are.’” 

Thomas cheeks started to burn, looking down and pulling at a string from the rip in the knee of his jeans. Did any of his pants not have rips? Did he need new pants? Why were all his pants ripped?

Was he, maybe, freaking out?

“Oh.”

Newt turned to him. “Is that why you’ve been so…” He struggled to find the right thing, trying to phrase delicately. “Down?” He settles on, wincing at the word as if it was his last choice but finding nothing better. (Or maybe something a bit too revealing.)

The Blue in his stomach bubbles with excitement like a pot of water on the stove and Thomas feels his throat close. “Yeah, um. Yeah, a bit. Some of it, at least.” He mutters, focusing on the string, avoiding Newt’s gaze.

There was a small sad laugh and Newt shakes his head. “Anyone ever tell you that old story, the one about ‘which wolf you feed’ or whatever?”

Thomas shook his head.

Newt’s shoulders stay hunched and protective but his face is soft. Guard not lowered so much as a single file unlocked. “Alby told it to me when I was a kid, Ximena had told it to him before that. I think they kinda realized after their parents died that they’d have to make a choice, you know?”

Thomas nodded, slightly dumbstruck.

“Anyway,” Newt clears his throat and continues “It’s this story about how there are these two wolves inside you that are constantly fighting. One represents bad qualities, you know, greed and anger and regret and sorrow or whatever. And the other has good qualities, love and hope and empathy and all that stuff. And how you feed one, you know? Either the bad or the good.” He stops to push his hair back from his eyes, strands getting shaggy and long and then he leans over and taps the center of Thomas’s chest, a hollow dap-dap-dap that, if anything, proves to Thomas that he’s empty inside.

“I think what’s happening in you, Thomas, is that you’re just giving nothing to either of them. And then they get hungrier, and hungrier, and,” Newt pauses and smiles sadly before continuing. “And, I think, they’re starting to eat you from the inside out because you’re too afraid to feed either of them. Scared what you’ll find. Scared of what you’ll _feel_.”

Thomas swallows against the thickness in his throat and looking down. Remembering how, for a while there last year, a strange foggy sadness had enveloped Newt. How he had withdrawn and become distant and it had, in a lot of ways, scared Thomas to his bones. How Thomas had suddenly and completely made it his life's mission to get him to smile again. Teresa had taken to braiding Newt's chin length hair, and even though he rolled his eyes he'd glowed and blushed. How Minho had him over for sleepovers at least three times a week. How, eventually, Newt seemed to drift back to them. To him.

Newt reaches up, tapping his shoulder lightly to get his attention again. “Thomas you’re the only person on this continent that would take acceptance to an amazing school and spin it to be something to be ashamed of. You’re the only one that would take helping Teresa avoid certain hassles and make yourself feel guilty about it. You take anything, anything you do, and turn it into something you can hurt yourself with.”

Newt takes a deep breath in, like he’s working up the courage to do something. Which, in and of itself is shocking. Newt wasn’t afraid of _anything_. Not a fight or cops who sneered at him just because they knew who his father had been or people older than him that looked at him and saw someone else.

In the background, the news reporter was mentioning forest fires.

Newt clenches his fist once, tightly, before reaching over and taking Thomas’s hand, thumb rubbing a tiny soothing circle into his palm. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re _hoping_ those things inside will eat and eat and eat until there’s nothing left of you.”

Thomas stares down at his hand in Newt’s and tries to think of something to say. Something to deny it. Something to make Newt stop looking at him that way, with that Look that asks, ‘What’s wrong?’ over and over.

Thomas is gripped by the sudden overpowering urge to kiss him. To ask him to stay. To fall asleep with him and wake up to rich dark brown eyes and messy blonde bedhead. He’s then gripped with the need to get up and walk out the door and never come back. He wants to go across the checkpoint where he was a different person, someone new who could start over, leaving everyone behind to pick up the pieces themselves.

He really was his mother’s son.

Thomas opens his mouth to deny it all. “Maybe.” Is all he manages to whisper. Newt searches his face, mouth pressing into a thin line. Squeezing his hand.

Newt mumbles about heading home. Thomas bites on his tongue.

The news speaks of fire.

-

“Do you wanna come over to my house after school?” Aris asks Thomas when he corners him in the hallway. Thomas pulls on his locker and swears under his breath, jamming his thumb against the fingerprint scanner attached to the lock.

“Hang in there.” Mary, his mildly-hippy ‘Call me Mary I hate the power imbalance of the title professor’ biology teacher (who was also his favorite) whispered out the side of her mouth with a smile as she passes his meltdown.

“What?” He asks Aris absentmindedly, scowling and gritting his teeth when the small light next to the lock buzzes an angry red. Fuck this locker in particular. “Mother fuckin-” He slams his thumb against the scanner again.

“Here.” Aris pushes his wrist aside and rubs the scanner with his shirt sleeve before stepping back. “They get kinda grimy sometimes. Makes ‘em finicky. Try now.”

Thomas scowls but tries, and when the light buzzes green he lets out a tiny irritated sigh, shoving his tablet inside. Aris watches him.

He turns back to Aris, making a mental note to put a bell on the kid. “What? Sorry.”

Aris grins sheepishly. “Do you, uh, wanna come over after school?”

Thomas thinks ‘No’ and then ‘ _Fuck_ no’ but what comes out of his mouth is “Alright.”

Aris’s face brightens instantly, wide toothy grin spreading. “Okay!” Aris chirps and taps at his palm for a moment to access his messages. “Let me just ask my mom if it’s okay if I have people over.” 

Thomas laughs before stifling it suddenly when he realizes Aris isn’t joking. “Wait-really?” He asks, eyebrows shooting upwards. 

Aris looks at him with endearing confusion and leans against the finger-print coded lockers. “Well, yeah. I wanna make sure it’s okay with her.” 

Just yesterday Teresa’s grandmother had walked into her own house with Teresa in tow to see Minho, Newt and Thomas sitting on her couch, uninvited and watching TV. “Meus filhos!” She had exclaimed. “Where were you earlier? Why aren’t you eating the empadão in the fridge? You don’t like my cooking anymore?” 

The three of them had denied it vehemently and she had waved them to the door with both her hands. “There are groceries in the car. Go get them and I’ll set the table.” 

They sat in the small kitchen and as they ate Thomas had chewed around the chicken pie and absentmindedly tugged on the brim of his cap before saying “Avó we cleaned the storm drain out front and put the garbage’s on the curb. I’ll get the cans tomorrow after it’s collected.” 

Teresa’s grandmother had caught Thomas’s face in her hands and smiled up at him from her seat. “Such a handsome boy. Te adoro.”

In the spotless hallway amidst the flow of kids with hover boards and houses that had pools and asked their parent’s permission to have people over because they were people and not family, Thomas looked at Aris and felt kinda homesick and more than a little bit lost. 

“Alright.” He says. 

Aris’s house is _massive_ and it’s not a house, it’s a legitimate _mansion_. When the lights turn on automatically in the double floor entrance way and a disembodied pleasant robotic voice greets Aris and asks him if he and his guests would like the pool cooled down as they walk through the front door, Thomas looks up at the chandelier bigger than a table and he can’t stop himself from uttering a watery, “Holy shit dude.”

There was wood carved furniture and paintings on the wall in sleek frames. Modern sharp edges mixed with classic soft swaying lines in tastefully soothing tones and matching patterns. A large fainting couch next to a fireplace and a sleek glass coffee table with swirling neon patterns that drifted across the top. Thomas couldn’t help but wander over and tap at the glass, watching the way the touch-sensitive surface simulated ripples of pastel pink and purple out from his finger. 

Teresa’s house and Minho’s house _and_ Newt’s house could fit into the first floor alone and Thomas feels his neighborhood on his skin like a cocoon. He wonders who or what he will be when it splits open. 

Aris laughs sheepishly, not quite noticing Thomas’s crisis. “When my dad got a promotion we cycled up a bit.” He explained. Winston is there and Rachel as well, and the four of them spend the afternoon swimming in the salt water pool and eat food on the patio that Thomas has never eaten before. When Thomas fumbles a flavor pod (strawberries) and spills bright red liquid over his shirt Aris offers to lend him something to wear home and Thomas waves him off, laughing. This weird food was a whole different skill set. 

“But it’s all over you. It’s going to be all sticky and uncomfortable. Why not just borrow a shirt?” Rachel says with concern. 

‘ _Because the cops at the checkpoint will think I stole it_.’ Thomas thinks. “It’s fine.” He says instead. 

-

Back before his mom had left (well, left for good, at least) they had gotten caught trying to steal a car when they were fourteen. It had been a joke, really. Just a dumb prank on some guy at school that was being a dick to Teresa. Not like they didn’t know how, not with Newt and all.

The guys parents weren’t going to press charges, but as the four of them sat on the bench in the police station Thomas almost wished they were behind bars. Just so that their parents couldn’t get to them. There was a high-pitched whine from the fluorescent lights that sang their doom.

Judging from the mutual expressions of dread on his three best friends faces, they were also imagining the death that would swoop down on them at any second. Newt sat on the bench with his feet tucked up under him, basically crouching, knees touching his chin and arms around his legs. Decidedly calmer, at least on the surface, than the other three. 

“Let’s send him on a scavenger hunt for his car, you said. ‘It’ll be so funny!’ you said.” Minho hissed at Thomas and Teresa, head hanging in his hands. “My Dad is gonna kill me.” Moaned from behind fingers. Thomas shuffled his feet awkwardly, sneakers squeaking against the linoleum. 

Teresa next to him spat out the piece of hair she had been chewing on. “My Avó’s from the old country.” She whispered. “They’re gonna find pieces of me all over the block.” Her eyes ran over the harsh lines and chipped walls, the dirty desks and the cops gathering in the break room to watch the show. It was a situation that, admittedly, promised a great deal of entertainment. Teresa popped a curl back in her mouth to chew on frantically. 

“MINHO. TAEGHWAN.” 

Minho groaned from behind his hands. His mother, a tiny woman, steamrolled over to the four of them, smoke coming from her ears. Minho raised his head and smiles like the grim reaper had just called his name. “Hey Umma.” He said weakly. 

Her eyes narrowed. “Outside. _Now_.”

“Umma-wait-it’s not what you think!”

She places her hands on her hips. “You didn’t steal a car?”

Minho winced. “Well, see, we _didn’t_ actually. Because uh, the cops got there first. But-wait-I mean, it’s still running on _gas_! It’s an environmental wreck! If anything, we’re eco-protectors.” He reasons, gesturing wildly.

“ _Minho_.”

Minho stood, and if they weren’t all so fucking screwed it would be laughable to see the already tall boy cowering in the presence of a woman who barely cleared his shoulder.

“But mom...” he tried, only to hang his head when her eyes narrowed. 

Her gaze ran over the three of them still hunched on the bench, shoulders rising to their ears under her contempt. Her eyes lingered the longest on Newt, and the blame in them almost made Thomas say something. Almost. (Thomas was still fourteen and uneasy around actual parents at this point.) Newt seemed not to notice, staring determinedly at the ground. 

“I think you’ve spent enough time with your friends for the evening.” She spat, dragging him away with Minho casting a last apologetic gaze over his shoulder. The cops snickered. Everything smelt like old plastic and stale coffee. 

They waited, fidgeting silently. Thomas drummed his fingers on the bench until a cop looked at him. He stopped. There was poster coming off the wall at the corners opposite Thomas. ‘Were in this together!’ It declared. A constant low background buzz of radio’s dialing in and out as orders are given. Someone near the back of the room watched a monitor, clicking between different drone cameras keeping inefficient surveillance on the borough.

They didn’t have to wait long.

“Teresa.” The name hissed like a poisonous snake. Teresa whimpered. Her mother appeared in front of them in her nurse scrubs, purse swinging, car keys in her hand, clearly called away from work. 

“Mom I-“ 

Her mother cut her off with a look. “Let’s. Go.” Teresa stood, dragging her feet. They hadn’t even made it out the front door when the yelling started, and the thin walls muffled nothing from Newt and Thomas’s benched spot in reception. 

  
“ _T_ _he HELL WERE YOU THINKING_?” Mariana yelled. Thomas watched through the glass of the door as Teresa turned, red faced and curls whipping behind her. 

“They were just trying to help me out-” 

“By getting you arrested?! _Really Teresa_? That’s how they were trying to help you!” 

“No-mom-” 

“Honestly Teresa! What were you thinking?” Her mother ran a hand through her hair, the picture of disappointment. “It’s my own fault, I’ve let you run wild with those boys. With _that_ boy.” Thomas winced, guilt stabbing at him. 

“Mom! It was my idea-” 

“No Teresa! You know how I feel about it! I’ve told you!”

Thomas wanted the ground to swallow him whole. Teresa’s mother had always been so kind to him. And all along she’d felt this way. The realization cut deep.

Teresa whipped around, hair flying, sinking her teeth into the fight. “He’s not like that-“ 

“Stealing cars Teresa! _Just like his_ -”

“ _Newt’s not like that_!” Teresa shrieked, and in the deafening silence everything slotted into place. Thomas went still. Newt sighed, a tiny resigned sound like he’d just found out his bus would be late, eyes fluttering closed. Thomas resisted the urge to grab his hand.

Outside the air crackled between the mother and daughter in a mutually assured destruction staring contest. One of the cops asked the other if they wanted popcorn. Thomas’s hand curled into a fist. 

“He _got you arrested_ _stealing a car_ Teresa! Look at who he spends his time with! His cousin!” 

Next to him Newt hunched in on himself like a turtle. Teresa’s voice wobbled, but her forthcoming tears didn’t lessen the volume. “Newt _hates_ Dan! That’s not him! Mom-he’s a kid just like me and Tom and Minho!” 

“It is _not_ the same Teresa.” Teresa’s mother crossed her arms, and Teresa unconsciously mirrored her. In that moment, they looked almost identical. “We’re going home.” She said, deadly serious. 

Teresa shook her head, curls flying, and Thomas knew she had barely contained the urge to stomp her foot. “Not without Tom.”

Thomas’s heart stopped. (He was so so so sosososo _fucked_.)

Mariana’s eyebrows rocketed upwards. “Excuse me?” 

“Not without Tom.” Teresa insisted. And then she softened, eyes sad and lips downturned, saying something quietly that neither Newt or Thomas could hear. Her mother’s shoulders slumped as she heaved a great sigh, shaking her car keys for a second. 

And then Mariana was slamming the door open, storming past Newt and Thomas as their massive eyes followed her into the main reception of the police station, speaking to one of the officers. “Can I take him too? I’ll give him a ride home.” She snapped, gesturing to Thomas like the stray he was. The cop that had processed them shrugged, growing bored of the family drama. 

“We got no answer at the number he gave us. He’s not getting booked. If you sign for him he’s all yours.” 

She put her hands on her hips, glaring at him and Thomas rose, turning to look at Newt. “But...” he said, trailing off when Newt shook his head. 

“It’s fine.” Newt muttered, burning a hole into the floor with his eyes and scratching at a scab on his elbow. “Al or Dan will come and grab me when they have a minute.” 

Teresa’s mother snapped her fingers. “Now Thomas.” 

Thomas bit his lip. The thought of leaving Newt alone here was _unimaginable_. “But...” 

“It’s fine, Tommy.” Newt whispered, shaking his head. Thomas gnawed on his lip, taking a step away, and then another. Following Teresa’s mother out of the station. Just as the swinging door closed he looked over his shoulder. The image of Newt sitting alone on the bench, curled in on himself under the harsh lights and sneers of the cops, looking so young, burned itself into Thomas’s mind. 

And for days after, every time he closed his eyes while he lay in his bed in his empty dark house, it was all Thomas saw. 

-

It’s not like he’s is avoiding Newt, Thomas reasons. He’s got school, and the workload is _crushing_ and even though he’s the stuff that apparent tech-geniuses are made of, he really has to buckle down. So Thomas parks himself in the shiny-chrome-clean library after his classes with its updated textbooks that properly show the new coast line (in Thomas’s other school the maps still show Florida above the sea. Someone had hacked the PDF and written ‘fucked’ as the state name.) Plus this place offered complimentary water and food. He dives into his course work and finds academic success with somewhat pleasant surprise.

(Mary glows every time she hands him back assignments. Thomas swallows and tries to tell himself that he doesn’t care.)

Sometimes Brenda joins him, sometimes Aris and Winston and Rachel. Sometimes all of them together, and after an initial tense period Winston asks Brenda timidly to see one of her new engine designs. She warms up considerably after that. The way to the girl’s heart was, apparently, through the currently unproven theory of molecular propulsion as a representation of energy. With a pang of pleased shock Thomas realizes he’s made _friends_. That he was doing _well_ here.

But it’s not like he could even enroll for the fall anyways, even if he wanted too, which he didn’t. If he was to go here he'd have to move into the dorms. To move into the dorms A.I needed a parent interview, needed guardian approval. It’s not like he could ask them to make an exception. Asking for an exception would lead to questions which would lead nowhere good. 

Because then Thomas would be found out, and he’d been unceremoniously ripped from his life twice already due to lack-of-a-parent-itis and he didn’t particularly want to make it a third.

The bus ride from Louisiana when he was nine was crystal clear in his mind. His tiny chubby fists in his lap, reaching up to pat down the cowlick on the back of his head nervously. He hadn't seen his mother in two years at that point, not since she'd come to visit for the holidays when he was seven. Thomas remembered the rattle of the wheels and the way he had stared at the blue thread-bare pattern of the seat in front of him. Tiny swirls in a lighter blue shade. Green squares. Orange triangles. He could still recall the fabric perfectly to this day. The numbness. The social worker that had collected him from his grandmother’s hospital room and put him on the bus had given him a box of animal crackers for the trip. He’d let them dissolve on his tongue one by one, the sweet lemony flavor coating his mouth. He hadn’t eaten a single one since that day, the taste made him sick.

Every morning Thomas leaves Teresa’s house before breakfast and comes home after dinner, and even though she gives him the Look she chooses to bide her time.

Teresa’s mom looks up one day as he comes through the front door after the sun had set and smiles. “It’s so good to see you applying yourself to summer school Thomas. You took a bad situation and really turned it around. I’m impressed.” Mariana glances over at her daughter and smiles wickedly. “Or, as you kids would say, it’s ‘so _data_.’ Right?”

Teresa groans, burying her face in her hands from her spot on the couch. “Mom oh my god, please don’t try and keep up with the times.”

Her mother clucked at her before turning back to the article she had been reading. “There’s leftovers in the fridge for you Thomas.”

His stomach growled appreciatively and he sheepishly shrugged out of his backpack, trying to ignore the wave of self-loathing. He was lying, consistently, to the only adult that had ever gone to bat for him. “Thanks.” Thomas winked at her as he walked past. “And don’t listen to Teresa, Ms. A. I think you’re hip as anyone on the block.”

When Teresa’s mother isn’t looking, he shoves a few fifty dollar bills into her purse that he’d made fixing up old tech and re-selling to pawn shops. (It wasn’t enough, not by a long shot, but it at least took the edge off the knife of guilt in Thomas’s back.)

Thomas throws himself into school and doesn’t so much put his nose to the grindstone as slam his entire face there and push against it. If he is exhausted and away from his block he doesn’t have to deal with any of the horrible sinking feelings that exist within him.

He knows, on some level, that he’s going to crack, but that’s a problem for Future Thomas and that guy wasn’t him. Plus, he reasoned, his final exams were glinting ominously on the horizon and this strange painful summer was melting away before his eyes. A part of him is grateful.

If someone had told him three months ago that he’d be waking up when the sky is still pink to go to school on a _Saturday_ , well, he would’ve laughed, and then maybe decked them, because how _dare_ they.

If someone had told him he would have been disappointed when the checkpoint crossing was closed due to a ‘security risk’ and no one was going to be able to get past for the next five hours, he would have _definitely_ laughed.

And he does, standing in line and holding onto one of his backpack straps and chuckling to himself with a hysterical edge until the people around him start to take discreet steps back. A security risk all his own. So he rides the bus back, still chuckling, and as he takes the long route to Teresa’s house.

It felt good, not being there. And then it felt bad.

(Thomas hates himself, but this is, by this point, fairly well established and needs little reiteration.)

And then as he walking slowly back to his neighborhood he sees Newt.

Or, more accurately; he sees Newt getting thrown to the ground in an alley as two guys kick the crap out of him.

Or, even more accurately; two guys _try_ to kick the crap out of him, but Newt is really holding his fucking own. He might be wiry but his shoulders are broad and he’s _fast_ , up on his feet in a second and landing a punch that sends one of them spinning backwards against the wall, and even when the other decks him Newt doesn’t fall, stumbling before using the momentum to swing out, the hit connecting and making the guy step back.

And then Thomas is there. And all the Blue in his stomach turns a burning sickening _Red_. Without conscious thought he’s throwing punches and snarling and maybe yelling (he was) and grabbing one of the guys, the taller one, by the neck of his shirt and ripping him away from Newt, slamming him into the brick and his knuckles are sinking into anything that feels soft. There’s a crack to the side of his face and his mouth fills with pennies but if his brain is sending pain signals there’s a disconnect in his system.

Newt’s hands wrapped around his arm that was swinging back for another punch and dragging Thomas back, pulling him to the opening of the alley. “We gotta go!” Newt was shouting over the crashing in Thomas’s ears, and that’s when he sees the three other figures running down the alley towards them.

“Cavalry’s here.” Thomas shoots back and despite the impending potential ass kicking Newt had the sarcastic decency to roll his eyes.

“ _That’s what I’m saying_.” Newt hissed, and the two of them took off running. Okay, not so much running as scrambling. But for the sake of dignity, it was running. They weaved through the streets, cutting through another alley and hopping a fence, the chain linked metal rattling and shaking under their hands and feet. Thomas experiences a slam of déjà vu as Newt and him sprint back towards the safety of their home turf, just the slap of sneakers on the gritty pavement, harsh breathing, and somewhere along the way they’re catching each other’s eye and smiling.

Because what else could they do?

Newt slows to a stop behind the convenience store they’d loitered in as children, stumbling and throwing his hand out to steady himself and doubling over.

Thomas rushes to him. “Shit Newt you okay? Is it your ribs? Did they get you?” He sputters out, hands hovering over Newt helplessly. It’s then he realizes that Newt’s sides are shaking. He’s _laughing_.

“Cavalry’s here.” Newt snorts, getting himself under control slowly. “Cavalry’s _fucking here_.” He chortled, reaching out and grabbing Thomas’s shoulder, shaking him once, Thomas’s face turning down into a pout.

“What! They were!”

Newt shakes his head, standing up fully and still chuckling. He squeezes Thomas’s shoulder with every few words. “You are, without a doubt, the most _dramatic_ person I know.” He laughed once more, breathless and flushed and eyes brimming with affection, a bruise already forming on his cheek. Newt raises his hand for a high five. “We wrecked em.” he adds with a grin.

Thomas kisses him.

Newt lets him.

And then it’s Newt’s fingers winding into his hair and Newt is pushing him _hard_ against the alley wall and for a second it’s nothing but a flurry of slanting lips and bodies moving desperately and Thomas wrapping his arms around the slim waist pressed against his own and trying to crush them together. Newt leaves his mouth only to rain kisses down all over his face, his neck, mumbling something to low for Thomas to hear over the y _ouyouyouyouyouyou_ spinning in his head.

They jump apart when there’s a shout of laughter out on the street and they realize simultaneously that, holy shit, they’re still outside and it’s broad burning daylight and _anyone_ could walk down the alley.

Thomas does his best to get his heart to stop jackhammering out of his chest. He can’t tell if it’s from the fight or the running or the feeling of Newt against him. Thomas refuses to acknowledge that it’s definitely the last one. “You’re bleeding.” He says, to fill the silence.

Newt chuckles. “Actually, so are you, funny enough.” He reaches out, swiping his thumb against Thomas’s mouth and bringing it away red.

“Oh.” Thomas says, licking his lip and tasting metal. Newt smiles at him, a big grin with fondness tugging up the corners.

“Cavalry’s here.” Newt says to himself before chuckling again and shaking his head. “Come on, let’s see how long the cashier’s memory is. I need a drink.”

Turns out it didn’t matter how long the cashier’s memory was, because Alby was already in the Convenience store, chatting away with the woman behind the counter. ( _Bing-bong_ went the door-bell.) He turned and frowned the minute he saw them, gaze zeroing in on Thomas’s bleeding lip and Newt’s purpling cheek. “Hey gu-what the _hell_ happened to you two?” He demanded.

Newt pulled up short, stopping suddenly. To complete the image of teenagers caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing, Thomas walks into him, making both of them stumble.

“Um-” Newt says.

“Buh-” Thomas says. Because, he was, after all, attending a school for gifted youths.

Alby’s eyebrows raise, and he crosses his arms amidst the chips and soda cans. “Yeah, that’s not an answer. The hell happened?” 

“Alby we-” Thomas starts, but Newt steps on his foot and Thomas shuts his mouth.

And then watches as Newt shrugs nonchalantly, already leaning down to grab a wrapped popsicle from the freezer and pressing it against his bruised face. “Just messing around. Slipped. Fell. We were-”

“-Car surfing.” Thomas supplies and Newt snaps his fingers.

“Car surfing. We were car surfing.” Newt continues, pulling the popsicle away from his bruise.

“Wiped out. Hard.” Thomas adds with a nod of his head.

“Hard.” Newt finishes before pressing the popsicle against Thomas’s lip, ignoring his wince.

Alby raises a solitary, disbelieving eyebrow. “Car surfing.” The radio behind the counter plays softly in the background.

“Car surfing.” They chime in perfect synchronization. Partners in crime. They might as well be nine years old again.

“I don’t think they were car surfing.” The cashier offered with a pop of gum and a vindictive smile. Ah, clearly, she remembered them. Alby sighed.

“No, I don’t think they were either.” He says while ruefully turning back to his purchases laying forgotten on the counter. “Jen how much do I owe you?

The cashier shook her head, hair waving and gum popping. “Forget it. No charge. Not after how you helped us out with those guys that tried to hold up the shop last year.”

Alby and her argued for roughly two minutes, Newt absentmindedly grabbing a bag of chips and opening it, offering some to Thomas. “Snacks for the chivalry show.” He whispers into Thomas’s ear and Thomas snorts, grabbing a handful and shoving the MSG-goodness into his mouth, ignoring the sting of salt against his cut lip.

“Jen I can’t let you do that, you guys run a busine-” Alby suddenly looks up towards the radio, cutting himself off mid-sentence. “Could you turn that up?” He asks and Jen happily spins the volume dial, scratching voices filling the small space.

“-and straight from the ‘city in the clouds, Atlas, it’s the speedster sensation Miyoko! So, Miyoko. Back on your home turf-obviously not literally-for a visit and you’ve just set the <em> _fastest_ </em> qualifying time for at least three different events, how does it feel to be not only one of the most promising athletes of the decade, but also one of the most beloved?” The radio announcer asked. And despite the distorted quality of the radio, Thomas instantly recognized Miyoko’s easy laugh, one he’d heard floating down the sidewalk countless times.

“Dunno about that whole ‘beloved’ racket. Might want to hear some of my mom’s stories before we go throwing around that statement.”

The announcer chuckled disarmingly and infectiously and completely fake, the way only a radio personality star could perfect. “We’ll have to get her on the show next. Now, it _is_ true though, that even though you’ve always been a talented athlete, you did get up to some mischief back in your old days.”

Miyoko laughed again, and Thomas couldn’t help but smile, gazing out of focus at a stack of candy bars. “Yeah.” Radio-Miyoko admitted. “I was kind of a handful back then.”

“You came from quite a rough area of the city, didn’t you?” The DJ asks leadingly.

Miyoko let out another small chuckle and Thomas remembered suddenly how she used to smile when she ran around the track, big and full, bright teeth and a grin that would take up her whole face. “Yeah, I came from one of the boroughs outside the main city checkpoints. It was rough around the edges, but an absolute heart of gold, that’s for sure.”

“You must be something of an inspiration to everyone back home then.”

“Other way around, if anything.” Miyoko countered playfully.

“Really?” Asked the host.

And when Miyoko spoke, a bit of the chipper PR tone was gone, replaced with genuine warmth, and Thomas’s smile grew as her words drifted around them. “That’s the thing a lot of people don’t seem to get. Whenever they talk about my past or where I came from, I mean. Everyone says it like I overcame my surroundings. And yeah, sure, I’ll never be caught dead saying there weren’t obstacles, but I’ve been lucky enough to go all around the world, and I’ve never been anywhere that’s felt the same. If you’re from that place? Part of that neighborhood? Man, that’s family in a way I can’t even describe. People take care of each other out there.”

The announcer sighed happily, probably thinking of all the marketable soundbites he’d just gotten. “It sounds like you really love it.”

They could all hear the smile through the radio. “Yeah, it’s got its own problems, but it’s home. And it’s always got your back. You know I got my first pair of running shoes from a guy a few years older than me in school? Spent his whole pay-check on them. Told me ‘You’ve got a gift. Go use it.’ We still talk to this day, him and I. Already got his ticket to the Olympics to come see me race.”

Even the announcer was moved. Admittedly, PR moved, but still. “Really? That’s incredible.”

Thomas could just imagine Miyoko shaking her head. “Nah, not incredible. That’s just how he does it out there.” 

“Well, thank you so much Miyoko for slowing down for just a minute to chat with us! Now, listeners, we’ve gotta take a short break but we’re going to be right back with the top do’s and don’t of the new lunar season! Stay tun-”

Next to him Newt let out a tiny hum, the sound so content that Thomas reaches out, grabbing his hand and squeezing, just for a moment.

For the second time in one day, Newt lets him, squeezing back. They smile at each other, basking in the warmth. And then Newt looks past him, nodding with his head for Thomas to see. He turns.

Standing amidst the cheap junk food and soda drinks and lottery scratches and sharp smell of metal cans, Alby stood looking down at his hands, head bowed, flipping a coin over and over in between his fingers. _Glowing_ with happiness. 

Alby drew himself out of his thoughts with marked difficulty, unable to stop beaming even as he asked Jen the cashier “So. What’do I owe you?” Voice softer than Thomas had ever heard. (Except when he talked about Newt.)

And in that moment the cashier was all of them when the corners of her lips turn up and she says quietly. “Nothing.”

It’s after this moment that she notices Newt and Thomas and the open bag of chips with an unimpressed frown. “But you two are paying for that.”

“Jen, you wound me.” Newt says, placing his hand to his chest.

Thomas shakes his head in desolation. “I thought we were closer than this Jen.”

Outside, the three of them blink into the sun and shield their eyes and generally bask in the happiness of Miyoko’s success.

Alby turns to them, pointedly ignoring their bruises and cuts, clearly deciding the story was too much trouble. “So, what’re you kids up to today?” They both exclaim angrily around the ‘kids’ comment, making Alby laugh. Thomas realized with delayed shock that it was only morning still. (Summer days and endless and all that previously stated.)

Newt shrugs, biting at a nail. “Dunno really, might just-”

“The carnival.” Thomas says and they both turn to him, Newt’s eyebrows raising, because, when had they committed to that exactly? Thomas ignores him. He was dramatic after all. “We’re going to the carnival, down on the boardwalk.”

“Oh.” Alby says, eyebrows raising and making a ‘huh’ face at Newt. “Didn’t really take you as a ‘carnival’ kind of guy. Actually, I thought you _hated_ the carnival.” He says and the blonde just shrugs, eyes sparkling, looking at Thomas. His cheeks felt warm.

“Changed my mind, I guess.” Newt says, still looking at him.

After Alby had waved them away, Thomas turned, feeling the smile grow on his face, catching his tongue between his teeth. “So, wanna go to the carnival?” He asks.

Newt, coincidentally, did.

-

“This whole thing is _rigged_ dude. There’s _no way_ that dart didn’t pop the balloon. It’s rigged man. No, bring that balloon over here. Lemme hit it with this dart, point blank. I _dare_ you.” Thomas playfully called at the red and white stripped booth clerk. Hearing Newt’s low laugh in his ear like music.

“I don’t think he likes you very much Thomas.” Newt says, gesturing to the clerk. Who was currently giving Thomas the finger. Thomas looked over his shoulder, eyebrows raised.

“Now, what makes you think that? I got a feeling we’re going to be fast friends.” He says even as Newt leads him away, content to be pulled through the flashing lights of the seaside fairgrounds. Planks of wood shifted under their feet as Thomas and Newt drifted from stall to stall along the boardwalk, lightbulb lined signs advertising thrills and riches.

Children sticky with sugar and sweat darted between their legs and the loud shouts of booth workers trying to entice people to their games or rides called to each other through the bright afternoon.

At the massive hammer-and-bell station Newt nudged Thomas. “Come on then you brute, let’s see that raw strength.”

Thomas made a ‘pshhh’ noise with his lips and shrugged, swinging the large wooden hammer with ease, cocky (and maybe a bit of a shit-head). “Got this on lock.” He bragged before gripping the blunt weapon with both hands, swinging and bringing it down like Thor on a bad day. The large thermometer shaped measure barely made it up the thermometer shaped measurement. Thomas squawked indigently.

“It’s rigged. They’re all rigged.”

Newt took the hammer from him, fingers brushing together more than necessary. In one fell swoop he swung, smashing it to the ground and Thomas watched, eyebrows raising like the tiny red marker as it slammed to the top, hitting the bell and making a loud shrill ring.

“It’s rigged.” Thomas mumbled around the fluffy stuffed dinosaur that Newt had won, the blonde trying to hide his smile behind the plastic cup of pink lemonade that they’d spiked with cheap gin. Sweet and sour and chemical mixing together in a swirling neon concoction that sloshed inside of Thomas’s head and made everything sharp and fuzzy at the same time.

Thomas shoved the stuffed dinosaur in a random child’s arms, and Newt did his best to hide his snort, taking another sip from the paper straw. They rode the roller-coaster, a winding dipping turning behemoth that had Thomas clutching the safety bar for dear life as the wind blew through his hair and roared in his ears. He let out a burst of laughter, turning to shout in Newt’s ear.

And then just looking. Watching the way the sun shone down on him, hair glinting in the light. How Newt threw his head back to laugh as they dropped, the sound following them down as they spun into free-fall. And even after, when they’d gotten off the small car and back onto wobbly legs, Thomas looked at Newt. Still in freefall.

In the tacky tourist-trap haunted house (‘Enter, at your _OWN RISK_ _’_ the sign declared in letters made out of plastic bones) as hologram monsters jumped at them and glitched out broken scrips of dialogue, Newt took a step back, knocking into Thomas and sending them both stumbling into a dark deserted corner. And because he is young and reckless and Newt’s light dusting of summer freckles stands out in the dim glow, Thomas wraps his arms around Newt’s side and pulls him closer, kissing him soundly. Heart shaking in his chest, because he's _trying_.

And for the third time that day, Newt lets him.

Newt trails a hand up Thomas’s side, along his chest, curving around his throat and cupping his jaw. When Thomas gasps softly Newt takes it as an invitation, tongue stroking and exploring around Thomas’s panting breath, pushing him up against the wall. And even after, when Newt pulls back he stays close, their noses brushing and gazing at each other, eyes heavy and glowing.

When they’re outside again Newt casually throws his arm around Thomas’s shoulders as they walk through the crowds and Thomas wonders when they’d gotten back on the rollercoaster without him noticing. His stomach seemed to disappear. 

“When’d you get so short?” Newt asks with a playful frown.

“Around the time you didn’t get the memo about growth spurts needing to end.” Thomas counters around a hot dog.

Newt scoffs. “Minho is-oh, thanks.” taking a bite of the offered street food before continuing. “-Minho’s just as tall as me, no question.”

Ah.” Thomas says with one finger raised. “But Minho’s got _muscles_ now. He’s proportioned. All this is just…” He shakes his head in sorrow. “Just a scarecrow run amuck.”

Newt laughs, throwing his head back again and in the process exposing his neck, teeth flashing. Nearby a girl in a striped bathing suit looks at him appreciatively. Thomas resists the urge to show his teeth. Newt, missing Thomas’s own personal turf war, smiles and leans to chuckle in Thomas’s ear. “Does that make you Dorothy? Following the yellow brick road to Emerald City?”

Thomas blows a raspberry at Newt. “You’ve been spending too much time with Teresa. I’m not Dorothy, no way. I’m one of those flying monkeys.”

Newt grins at him sideways and dangerously sharp. “Mmm don’t know about that. You’ve got the freckles for it.” He tapped Thomas’s cheek with his finger. “Plus.” Newt adds while Thomas tries to swallow around the butterfly in his throat. “You’d look _mighty_ cute in gingham.”

“Blue isn’t my color.” Thomas denies primly, and somewhere deep in the back of his head behind a door with ‘Traitor’ scrawled in bright red glowing ink across it is _you seem so happy here, away from home_.

Newt shakes his head. “Difference of opinion.”

They mix more gin and pink lemonade and chemical and the sky matches the color of their drink, the two of them flushed and sunburnt and maybe touching each other more than necessary. They pass the massive glowing illuminated Ferris wheel and Thomas turns to Newt, opening his mouth.

“Uh-huh.” Newt says, shaking his head before Thomas can get a word out. “No way. No fucking way Tommy.”

“Come on.” Thomas begs, dragging Newt and all of his weak protests towards the ‘death trap’.

Newt’s fists grip the safety bar, knuckles white (and red from the morning) clenched tight. “Do you know these are built as separate parts? And then they’re put together? That means it’s s _eparate parts Tommy_. One bolt goes loose and we’re dead.” Newt mumbles as Thomas laughs, the two of them rising over the fair grounds and the boardwalk and the entire world. They spin upwards slowly and Thomas leans over to look down at the fair.

And when he falls back against the seat it’s to find one of Newt’s arms thrown behind Thomas’s shoulder casually. And if Newt was staring resolutely out at the water and his cheeks were a little pink, then, well.

And then they’re slowing just as they reached the top. The machine grinds to a halt, the small bench seat swinging as they look out over the water and the city. The entire metropolis bathed in bright gold from the lights, the sky dark and purple above them and the ocean just to their left. And it’s breathtaking. It’s something out of a dream, blurry at the edges and warm.

He suddenly remembers another bright and purple night looking at the sky, and the taste of apple juice on lips.

Thomas turns to make a joke about destiny, or property values, or maybe scarecrows, and stops short. Words turning to dust in his throat. Because Newt is looking at him, eyes shining and smiling That Smile, soft and hungry and only for him. No one had ever looked at him like this before. In the silence Thomas feels his heart flutter out of his chest and away on the salty sea breeze. His knuckles gripping the bar just as tightly as Newt’s had been. 

“Top of the world.” Thomas rasps out, watching how the carnival lights from below skate rainbows across Newt’s skin.

Newt’s eyes drift down to his lips before he drags them back up to meet Thomas’s gaze. “Higher then Atlas.” Newt mutters, already leaning in.

When their mouths press together the whole world goes quiet and muted and there is nothing inside Thomas’s head besides _youyouyouyouyou_ running wild like the fizzling in his veins. The bench rocks and they rock with it, the kiss waxing and waning like the moon above them, transforming into something new. Thomas wrapping his arms around Newt’s neck, pulling him closer, and for a few frantic seconds it’s just breathing and searching movement. Thomas might actually float away on the breeze as well, he was so lightheaded and happy. Newt groans, breaking the kiss but staying so close their mouths brush, hand reaching to trace light patterns on Thomas’s lower back.

“Come home with me.” Newt whispers against his lips.

Thomas smiles. “Nah.”

He goes home with Newt.

-

The minute they were through the door and in Newt’s empty dark house Thomas was winding their fingers together and pulling Newt close. Thanking whatever was left up there in the universe for Sonya’s sleepovers at Harriet’s and Newt’s mother’s decision to go on the long truck haul with Newt’s step-father over the weekend.

“Tommy.” Newt laughs, maybe a bit breathless and something inside him jumped like a low-ride car with hydraulics at the sensation.

(Sticks and stones won’t break Thomas’s bones, but Newt whispering ‘ _Tommy_ ’ against his split lip might kill him.)

Thomas pulled him closer and it felt good in Newt’s arms, long and wiry and s _trong_ _,_ wrapping around him and the day had been sun soaked and _fun_. More fun than he’d had in a long time, and it was between them now. Something playful and light and sweet and for the first time in a long time Thomas actually _feels_.

Newt tried to pull away with another chuckle.

“Nuh-huh.” Thomas breathed and kissed him, the two of them bumping against the living room coffee table. And then Newt wasn’t pulling away as much as he was pulling Thomas with him, tugging him towards his room. He turned to lead the way and Thomas wraps his arms around Newt’s waist, his chest pressed against Newt’s sharp shoulder blades and pronounced spine, kissing his neck as they walk.

“What’s got you all twisted?” He muttered and Thomas can hear the smile on his face. He presses his lips to the spot between Newt’s shoulder and neck and feels Newt _shiver_ _._

“Dunno.” He says against skin but what he thinks is _youyouyouyou_. They make it to Newt’s room, barely, Thomas kicking the door closed behind him. And then Newt’s walking backwards to fall on the bed, Thomas climbing on top of him, grabbing his own shirt and tugging it up, throwing it _somewhere_.

Newt runs his hands appreciatively down Thomas’s chest and stomach. “The hell is Mariana feeding you to give you muscles like that?” He teases. And then- “Are you _blushing_?” Newt laughing, head thrown back and Thomas kisses him to make him stop.

“It’s the booze.” Thomas lies and neither of them believe it. He can feel Newt’s smile against his own lips and everything is perfect. And not in the shiny-chrome-clean-perfect of Alexandria, and not in the perfect of Ximena and Alby’s front lawn where everything was familiar and held together with rusted metal. It was just _perfect_.

Full stop.

With a groan and an insistent thrust of his hips that sends a racing mile-long computer code-line of demands in his body, Newt grasps at his pants and pops open the button. But Thomas doesn’t want it to be fast and harsh and hushed and secret. Not when Newt smells like pavement and sweat and sagebrush and just a hint of sticky sweet pink-gin-lemonade.

Thomas's palms are on Newt’s shoulders and pushes him back on the bed, swallowing down Newt’s groan with his mouth before moving to his neck, trailing hot long lines of kisses along his throat. Everything was warm and slightly blurry around the edge and maybe it was the carnival lights, or the gin, or the sunshine, but something seemed to glow within the two of them. Newt's hands are running lines up and down his back and he gives another slow lazy thrust between Thomas’s legs that makes him forget how to breathe for a second, letting out a warm sigh against skin.

“Oh shit-” Newt groans and Thomas can’t do anything but exhale against Newt’s neck before Newt was moving with that same lazy slow drag, apparently for the sole reason to hear that hitch in Thomas’s breath for a second time. Thomas kisses another line from his collar-bone to his ear and bites once on the thudding pulse, nipping softly and Newt takes a sharp gasp in before laughing. “Seriously, _what_ has got you so tilted?”

 _Youyouyouyouyouyou_.

“Dunno.” Thomas mumbles around Newt’s skin, stuck on repeat, the word making him shudder. And then Thomas's hand is traveling down, fingers trailing across the firm stomach to Newt’s jeans, playing teasingly with the waistband, Newt making a noise of complaint when his hand stills there.

Thomas bites his own lip to stop his smile. He fails. “What?” He asks, and Newt might be feeling just as perfect as Thomas because he does that breathless laugh again.

“Tease.” Newt throws at him in the dark.

Thomas kisses him and forgets that he’s supposed to be pinning Newt because he stops. Letting go of Newt’s shoulders to bury his hands in thick soft hair. Newt’s hands snapping to his waist and anchoring Thomas in place, rolling his hips until they were both panting. “Who’s the tease now?” Thomas says low and with a hint of a drawl (drunk induced childhood accent making its appearance) against Newt’s lips and holy _shit_ the groan that comes out of the blonde’s mouth almost makes him lose it right then and there.

It’s a bit of a whirlwind after that, honestly. Newt struggling to pull off his own shirt and Thomas can’t stop kissing him and Newt ends up getting stuck because of it and then they’re laughing together, noses brushing.

Thomas tugs Newt’s shirt off _finally_ and then it’s skin on skin contact and sparks crackle at the sensation. And, okay, they _did_ have all night but the way that bright lights were going off in Thomas’s head and something was screaming in his mind that he needed Newt _now_ was making it difficult for Thomas to think of anything long-term.

The way Newt twisted and shook under him and the way he groaned when Thomas finally undid Newt’s pants. The way that Newt’s hands were frantically undoing his jeans and Thomas couldn’t help but twitch a bit when they were pushed down his hips and hot air hit his skin.

And he _definitely_ couldn’t help the groan from deep in his throat when Newt licked his way into Thomas’s mouth, murmuring “Want you. _Now_.”

Thomas smiles. “Nah.”

Newt sputters and swears. “You’re such a fuckin-" He cuts off when Thomas kisses his way down to Newt’s chest, feeling the way that Newt’s fingers rake through his hair only spurs him on.

“Oh.” Newt says, head thrown back the same way it had earlier in the sun, but he definitely wasn’t laughing now. “ _Oh._ ” He sighs frantically as Thomas hums. Newt gives as good as he gets, hands twirling and fisting into Thomas’s hair and _pulling_.

Thomas just has to look for a second.

At Newt. At the way his chest expanded and contracted, at the way he ran his tongue along his bottom lip frantically. At the way his hair was a mess on his head from thrashing against the pillow. At the way he was looking hungrily at Thomas.

And Thomas wants Newt so bad it almost _hurts_ but, miraculously, that’s the only thing that _does_ hurt.

Not the lies knocking around in his head. Not the sinking Blue in his stomach, drowned away by pink drinks and pink lips and pink laughing stolen kisses in the sky. Not the questions and fears and general _what the hell am I doing and what the hell are you doing and what the hell are we doing_ that’s been rattling in his lungs for weeks.

“Thought you wanted me?” Thomas teases and moves back up, trailing light brushes of his lips along the way. Newt’s hands grab his shoulders and pulling into a crushing kiss, moving insistently and making Thomas hurt in the good way even _more_.

“Now.” Newt corrects him with his scarred brow tilting, and wasn’t just the fucking epitome of Newt. Shattered and pupils blown and twitching out of his skin because of the way he wanted Thomas but still somehow managing to be, for lack of a better words, kind of a sarcastic shit. “I want you _now_.” Newt adds, and then he rolls them over, pinning Thomas, covering him completely and the demanding way that Newt grips the back of Thomas’s thighs makes Thomas’s stomach turn to pure lava. Apparently, Newt was done with waiting.

It’s pure unbelievable bliss when Newt ‘s moving ache-sweet-slow, and if Thomas doesn’t cool it down he’s going to lose it right then and there. It doesn’t help the way Newt’s groaning into his mouth and grabs Thomas’s waist, thumbs pressing _hard_ against his hip bones and fingers digging into his skin.

“Newt-” Thomas grinds out against his teeth and Newt moves instinctively, the motion setting him on fire and feeling himself go light and pliable and _perfect_ as Newt starts a slow dragging pace. Because it had never been like this before.

Before it had been hot and fast and desperate and sharp and angry and _good_.

But it hadn’t been lingering touches and long slow kisses and burning pooling heat between them. It hadn’t been Newt’s hands running up and down his shoulders and clutching at his lower back and Thomas tilting head up at the softest encouragement from Newt’s fingers. It hadn’t been slow caressing movements as Thomas buried his head into the connecting spot of Newt’s neck and shoulder.

(Because, some tiny part of Thomas that wasn’t completely lost realized, Newt had never been so _vulnerable_ before. And neither had Thomas.)

It hadn’t been Newt slowing down even further, and when Thomas stuttered out a complaint Newt kissed him long and deep.

“Don’t wanna stop yet.” Newt rasps, teasing payback for Thomas’s earlier taunts. And then he reached out, tangling their fingers together deliberately and tightly. Kissing Thomas like the whole world was ending.

They burned and melted into each other until Thomas didn't have a single thought in his head beside _youyouyouyouyou_.

Small dots of light were blinking in and out behind his eyes and the lighting in his spine was crackling, the heat in his stomach was _boiling_ , and Newt sensed it, shifting his hips, angling while reaching down. And _that_ had Thomas throwing his head back and arching his body like a bow.

“I’m-” Thomas gasped and waves were slamming into him like him and Newt were slamming their lips together and color was exploding behind his eyes like rainbow carnival lights.

“I know. I know. Me too.” Newt's words tight and breathless. The hand still locked with his own _squeezing_.

Newt’s whole body shook once, twice, before going tense, and the last thing Thomas experienced before he whited out was Newt whispering against his split lip “ _Tommy_.”

-

There were moments in Thomas’s life when time stood still.

When he sat outside his grandmother’s hospital room, tugging at a band-aid on his knee, lower lip wobbling as a social worker spoke on the phone to his mother.

When Minho and Newt and Teresa had looked at him for the first time on the sidewalk.

When Alby, a teenager and cool and strong and protective had ruffled Thomas’s hair. “Watch Newt’s back okay? He’s scrawny.” Newt had scowled and demanded that Alby take it back, the two of them leaving Thomas standing and blinking in the street, Newt scampering after Alby and whining ‘Wait for _me_!’.

When the first time him and Teresa had kissed, and they had looked at each other in confusion because _wasn’t this supposed to feel right_?

When he had opened the door to his mess filled house, letting his backpack fall off his shoulder with a thump and called “Mom?” to the empty dark living room, already knowing.

When, two months later, he had sat down heavily on his still empty house’s front step, head hanging, lower lip trembling again. A crumpled piece of paper in his fist with ‘Eviction’ written angry and red on the front.

The first time him and Newt had kissed on Newt’s roof, and it hadn’t just felt _right_ it had felt _cosmic_.

When he had been called into the Principal’s office, and Paige had smiled at him and clicked her computer key. ‘Accepted.’ Bright and green across the screen.

When he’d walked through the doors of Alexandria the first time, and just _looked_ at it all. Swallowing repeatedly and compulsively and almost throwing up. ( _I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore_ fluttering through the back of his mind.)

And now.

When, after he had finished panting and gasping into Newt’s neck, Newt raised himself up on shaking arms and looked into Thomas’s eyes. That small, slow, wonder-filled smile growing across his flushed face and pink swollen lips. How Newt had leant down and kissed him, gentle and glowing, and _youyouyouyou_ running through Thomas’s head.

And time stopped for Thomas again, seconds later, when Newt kissed him again, hand cupping his face and thumb stroking along his cheekbone, light as moth wings. Not an inch of space between them. Very quietly in Thomas’s mind, whispered so soft in the back and under all the guilt and lies and the questions and the _youyouyouyouyou_ there was a tiny, terrifying, ( _love?_ ).


	3. Understatement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO MUCH to everyone that's left comments and kudos and bookmarked this fic, I'm still really new to writing and it's just been so unbelievably wonderful to see people like it. 
> 
> If anyone is interested (I'm not sure) but I made a quick playlist that has some of the songs I listened too while writing this fic - [x](https://ambientdinostars.tumblr.com/post/190467357765/bus-ride-to-the-checkpoint-a-playlist-pineapple)
> 
> Update-TRIGGER WARNING: Hey guys! So with everything going on I just wanted to update and say this chapter goes a little deeper into the pandemic that caused the checkpoint system talked about in this fic. I wrote this whole thing from november to january, just before all of this was really taking off. If you'd like to avoid the paragraphs that cover the description of the pandemic (it just adds context but nothing huge, and boy I GET if you want to avoid anything to do with a global sickness right now) just jump right ahead to "When Thomas drifts up" and start from there! Stay safe everyone!!!

Back before they were born, even before their parents were born, when their grandparents were children, the wrong horse met the wrong bat. 

A crossover zoonotic event. Two viruses mixing together and mutating, and although neither of those species were overtly affected, that wrong horse and that wrong bat instantaneously created a mathematical improbably. A one in a million chance, an illness that was so efficient in its contagion as well as its fatality it wouldn’t have been more effective if it had been tailor-made to knock the human race down a few pegs. 

The MEV-2 virus spread across the planet like diseased blood cells coursing through veins, and for just over twenty months the world burned. They’d been asking for a pandemic; the historians would eventually say. The global overcrowding, the breakdown of nutrition, the already crumbling medical systems, the international travel infrastructure that had allowed you to get from one corner of the continent to the other in under a day. Across an ocean in a few hours. Planes and trains and pathogen shifts, oh my. 

To try and control not only the spread of the virus, but also the terrified population, the checkpoint system was born. Massive cities quickly turning into quarantine checkerboard grid patterns. Reinforced with barbed wire, exo-plastic, and concrete. And the martial law, of course. 

The very lucky few hung above them all, the city of Atlas floating in the sky, pulling their drawbridge closed to let those below fend for themselves. 

And then the vaccine had been created. 

When all was said and done, over twelve percent of the global population was gone. Twice the death toll of the Spanish influenza from centuries earlier.

In a lot of ways, behind the checkpoints and the walls reinforced with barbed wire, and steel, concrete, (and the martial law, of course) their borough and the people that lived there had been left to their own devices. 

Not a unique situation. Crime had run wild, it was almost impossible to get in or out, the entire neighbourhood plunging into poverty. Barely anything given to them from the city center made it through. And what did come wasn’t nearly enough, not by a long shot. The police and the army hadn’t even tried to get things under control for years, they had bigger problems to focus on. And then even when they ‘had things under control’ they didn’t, not really, not much.

And that’s how it went on, for a time. 

Things got a bit better, and then a bit more. A bit less poor, a bit more infrastructure. And then a bit more after that. And then, things were normal again, mostly, by the time Thomas’s generation was born. But the checkpoints stayed, too good of an opportunity for control for the governments to pass up. 

MEV-2 faded into the background, only significant in history textbooks or the occasional far away stare of a grandparent, and the vaccine was added to the list of other compulsory immunizations.

Thomas hadn’t even blinked when he’d gotten it in his grade school gym back in Louisiana, small legs swinging in his chair. The nurse had told him he was brave, gave him a smile and a small candy, and Thomas had run off to play. (When he’d mentioned it to his grandmother offhandedly that it was vaccine day at school while they ate dinner, her hands had started to shake so badly she’d dropped her cup.) 

-

When Thomas drifts up the pre-dawn light, Newt’s arm around his waist and chest rising and falling evenly against his shoulder blades, his first instinct is to get up and leave. Because it’s so warm and soft and _intimate_ and that, frankly, to Thomas, is an extremely terrifying emotion. (Maybe even more terrifying than all the Blue waiting on the fringes.) Newt stirs, pulling his arm away like he’d read Thomas’s mind, and with a pang he realizes that Newt assumes he’d want to run as well, right on cue. Maybe Newt _wanted_ him to run. 

( _People come and go so quickly here!_ Dorothy had exclaimed.)

“Hey…” Thomas rasps, rolling over to look at Newt, watching dark brown eyes flutter open drowsily. Newt blinks, confused. This wasn’t part of the script.

“Hi.” Newt grates back. “You gotta go?” Asked with a yawn and a stretch.

Thomas thinks ‘Yes.’ And then ‘ _Fuck_ yes.’ But what comes out of his mouth is-

“Nah.” And then, quietly, “Is that okay?”

Newt blinks again and rubs his eyes for good measure, because Thomas wasn’t just going off script, he was burning the whole thing up in a rusted trash can fire. “Yeah, uh.” He cleared his throat. “Yeah, that’s okay.”

Thomas settles back down fully on the pillow, watching Newt’s slow grin shift across his face and feeling his insides glow like the sunrise outside the window.

“So,” Thomas says with a happy sigh. “What’s up?” Newt rolls his eyes. 

“It’s weird.” Newt says to him out of the blue later that day while they walk into Minho’s backyard after they had lay in bed for hours. (A first.)

Although they hadn’t just lay in bed, Thomas amended to himself smugly. He’d seen Newt in the morning more times than he could count, but Newt, with the light catching the gold in his hair and looking down at him with lidded eyes as he hovered over Thomas was, by far, for _sure_ , his favorite.

(At one point when they are dressed and ready to head out, Newt puts Thomas’s hat on, turning it backwards. “What’d you think? Might try and cop your style.” He teased and then laughed as Thomas pushes him back down onto the bed.)

“What’s weird?” Thomas says as he collapses onto the sofa out back of Minho’s, half-heartedly trying to defend himself from Princess the Great Dane desperate to show her affection. The large willow tree that refused to die swayed in the breeze.

Newt shrugs. “Just, you know, not having you around.” Reaching over from his seat to brush a stray bit of grass from Thomas’s shirt. Thomas does his best not to blush and grin like an idiot. He fails _spectacularly_.

“It’s weird not _being_ around.” Thomas answers before adding, “But it’s only for the summer, and it’s like, almost half over anyways.”

Newt shook his head. “You’re gonna get in, get a scholarship. If you do your senior year at A.I it’ll open up, like, the _whole world_. You could go anywhere for college. You might even be able to go up to Atlas.”

Thomas snorted. “There’s no chance in hell they’re letting me in. The whole program is just using me to check a charity box on their tax forms, believe me. You should see some of the kids that go there Newt.” He chuckled. “Polar bears will walk the earth before I get _anywhere_ near Atlas.”

“But if you _did_ get in,” Newt says while balancing his chair on two legs, feet propped up on the milk crate/ash tray holder “You’d go, right?” There’s a twitch in Newt’s tone that makes him pause, and Thomas looks over, watching Newt balance, both physically and metaphorically, the blonde clearly torn between wanting to tread carefully and argue his point.

Thomas does his best to control the waver of anger in his voice. He fails, once again, _spectacularly_. “I’m not getting in, so…” _Back the fuck off of this topic because I'm not talking about it and it's not going to happen_.

He fidgeted with a hole in the knee of his jeans. Thomas plucks fitfully at the rip. These one’s had a hole as well. Why did all of his pants have holes? He still hadn’t bought new pants. He’d told himself to buy new pants, and he hadn’t, because he couldn’t even do _t_ _hat_ right _._ Was he, potentially, just a bit, freaking out?

Newt swallowed, throat bobbing. “Listen-Tommy-” He turned to Thomas, the bruise on his face from yesterday, (holy fuck _yesterday_?) a light shadow.

“Newt?” Cutting him off.

Newt hums, eyes tracing his face with a strange intensity.

“Why’d those guys try to jump you? And why…why didn’t you want to tell Alby?” Thomas asks, watching the way that Newt’s expression closes off like a door slamming shut. 

He sighed, a rattling annoyed sound that was directed at the sky and ran a hand through his hair. “Dan.”

“ _What_?”

“Yeah.” Newt says, not meeting his eyes.

“Dan? Your _cousin_ got those guys to beat you up?” Thomas explodes, snarl curling over his teeth.

Newt looked him like his head was on fire. “What? No. Of course not. He’s a fuck but he’s not _that_ much of a fuck.” He turned away, pulling out the located lighter and twirling a smoke between his fingers. Thomas waited, eyebrows raised, making a ‘go on’ gesture with his hands, because Newt really needed to clarify.

Newt clicked his tongue. “It was nothing. Dan’s been fighting…a lot. I guess with those guys too. And I guess the guys he fought wanted to get him back. Must’ve known we’re cousins, so.” Newt raised his shoulders in a matter-of-fact shrug before smiling, balancing on the tilted chair with ease. “It happens. You know it does. Besides, we were fine. At least until the cavalry arrived.” He snorted.

Thomas scowled. “I stand by it. But, Newt, Alby should know…” But then he swallowed, understanding washing over him, eyes growing big. “You didn’t want to tell Alby because you didn’t want him to know about Dan melting down.”

They were plunged into shadow and both looked up. A cloud passed over the sun and the crickets went quiet. Newt pressed his lips together until they were thin, raising his eyebrows once.

Thomas wondered, often, what it was like for Newt. Strangers knew his own father better than him. His uncle gone away since he was young. His mom meeting Alex, Newts stepfather, and having Sonya. A whole new family, and Newt left there on the fringes. In so many ways Alby and the others were the closest thing he had to belonging.

That, and Minho and Teresa and him.

Newt lit his smoke, offering the pack to Thomas and then shoving it in his pocket when Thomas shook his head. “It’s fine. I’ll handle Dan. Talk to him or something. If Alby knew…it just wouldn’t be good. And things are _good_ now. Better than it’s been in a long, long time.”

“Oh.”

The crickets start up again when the sun comes back, singing at the two of them.

Newt balances on the chair and the thin line he’s been walking all his life.

Thomas looks to the sky and tries not to think about what comes next.

Eventually Newt clears his throat. “So, you’re going right? To A.I, when you, you know. You get in.”

“The colors are different here.” Thomas says instead, and Newt pauses in his balancing act, looking over.

“How?” He asks, and Thomas realizes that Newt always does that. Takes any throw away garbage thought that pops into Thomas’s own head and out his mouth before his brain can stop it. Newt takes the glitching Blue covered code that Thomas spins and flows with it, like he genuinely wants to know where it came from and what it means.

“They’re better here. The colors, I mean. Like…okay. Across, over the checkpoint, everything is reflective and just seems to like…pulse, you know? The ads and the holos and the screens and the clothes. Even the trees. But it’s not real.” He bit his cheek. “Those trees? They shouldn’t be able to grow here. They’re from a different part of the world. Those ads are fake and the products they sell are fake, and no one has any idea.”

Thomas’s neck starts to ache from staring up at the sky but he ignores it, continuing on his rant. “Here it’s just…real. What you see is what you get. The grass isn’t as green but it’s _grass_ and the screens are missing pixels and can’t do 3D ads but that’s because they’re just _ads_. They’re not supposed to be able to jump out at you. The trees,” He gestured to the massive oak in Minho’s backyard. “The trees have been here. _Always_ been here, you know? And they’re _supposed_ to be here.”

“Why’re you trying so hard to make yourself hate it?” Newt asks simply.

The question slams into Thomas’s head so hard it feels like his pupils are spinning like a slot machine with a jackpot win. He jumps, eyebrows coming together. “What?”

He was saved from Newt by the sound of a screen door slamming, and they look up to see Minho stumbling towards them, yawning and scratching his side, pulling a t-shirt over his head (on it was a tree in flames. Underneath it was ‘If they burn we burn.’). His hair wild from sleep. “Sup.” Minho rasped.

“Hey.” They chimed back in unison.

Minho rubbed his eyes, staring groggily down at them. “My grandma wants to know why she keeps finding sad boys in her backyard.”

-

A month before the entrance exam, (which would most likely place this last February) Thomas stopped sleeping in Newt’s bed when he stayed over. 

There was no singular event that caused it. No one defining moment. But when they would lie down together like they had hundreds of times since they were nine, Thomas would just start to itch. No particular spot. Just. Itch. 

His fingers would want to drum against his thighs as he lay like a corpse, legs straight, hands pinning themselves to his sides. His lungs would feel slow and his heart would feel fast and his pulse would _thump thump thump_ in his ears. 

And the itch would just. Itch. 

It would start in his fingertips and move up his arms and dance on his chest. Skate around the inside of his mouth and throw itself into his throat and up to his brain and then jump down his spine to settle in his stomach. Twitching and poking and pooling and working its way under his skin all over. 

He would lie there for straining minutes in the dark and listen to the soft breathing, Newt’s body curled on his side and his back to him, and Thomas would just. Itch. 

So, one night when Thomas and Newt stumbled into Newt’s house, he pulled up short before following the other’s weaving frame into his bedroom, lingering in the doorway. 

“Um.” Thomas had said, swaying slightly and blinking at Newt. Who was swaying and blinking right back at him. 

“Excellently put. Couldn’t have said it better myself.” Newt teased, nodding his head along seriously. 

“Uh.” Thomas started again before stopping. 

Newt had applauded, trying to kick his shoes off. “Absolutely inspired. Vision-fuck.” He fell, sliding to the floor in one fluid movement that only the heavily intoxicated could achieve. “Visionary.” Newt completed, sprawled out on the ground and grinning up at Thomas, spread out like a snow angel on the old beige carpet. Thomas’s mouth had felt _bone_ dry. 

He leant down and offered his arm, hauling Newt up and standing again because that angle was doing something to Thomas’s brain. Making it Itch. 

“I’m gonna crash on the couch, I think.” Thomas says, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb, and Newt’s face cracked for just a second. And then it was gone. Tucked away like so many parts of himself that he kept separate from everyone, apparently even Thomas. He realized in a dull drunken fashion that they had _secrets_ from each other now. When had it started, Thomas wonders.

What was the very first one?

“Thank god.” Newt said with a laugh. “You snore so fucking loud.” 

“No I don’t.” Thomas sputtered. 

“Oh yes you do. Besides, how would you know?” Newt asks and Thomas works his mouth wordlessly for a moment. Huh.

Newt laughs again, tugging on his hat brim once. “There are some irrefutable truths to the world that we all have to accept. Relish is the best condiment, the whales are gone, yawning doesn’t make other people yawn, and you, Tommy, snore like a fucking trucker.” Newt chuckled. “And I should know, I live with one.” 

He spun Thomas around, pushing him lightly towards the living room. “Go. Let me sleep in peace.” 

“Relish is fucking gross.” Thomas had mumbled, and just before the bedroom door snapped closed he heard Newt’s laugh. 

That night as Thomas lay on Newt’s couch he hadn’t itched, but something was there in his stomach anyways.

He woke up the next morning to Harriet and Sonya peering down at him, Sonya with her hands on her hips. “Cowabunga loser. You gotta move, we wanna watch TV.” She had said in a matter-of-fact tone only perfected by younger siblings aged sixteen and under. 

Thomas had rubbed his eyes. “Buh?” 

Harriet looked down at him with an unimpressed glance. “Do you ever just try to-” she gestured vaguely to all of Thomas with her hands. “Not?”

Thomas yawned and dragged himself up, making space for them. As Sonya sat and clicked through the channels she put her hand to her mouth and covered a yawn of her own and his eye twitched. Thomas pointed towards a worn throw pillow tucked under Harriet’s arm. “Could you pass me that?” 

Seconds later when Newt walked out of his room with sleep dulled eyes and bedhead he frowns, confused. “Why is Thomas yelling into a cushion?” He asked the girls sluggishly. They shrugged, unconcerned. 

“One of life’s great mysteries.” Harriet said absentmindedly. 

“Unsolvable.” Sonya had added, head resting on Harriet’s shoulder. “There’s never anything on TV.”

“Can you turn it to the news?” Newt asks as he throws himself into the reclining chair next to the couch, biting at a nail. He’d been doing that a lot lately. 

Sonya hovers on the channel just before the news station and looks at Newt. “You’d have to owe me.” She said with a grin.

Newt let out an irritated sigh. “Thirty seconds is my best offer.”

Sonya shook her head. “Uh-huh. You know the rules, full sixty second hug or nothing.”

“I thought little sisters were supposed to hate their big brother and want to make their lives miserable, not blackmail them for affection.”

“Ah.” Sonya said, raising a finger in clarification. “But I know how much it bugs you whenever I want a hug, ergo, I am not only _gaining_ affection, I’m also making your life miserable. Two birds, one stone.”

Later that day Thomas asked Teresa if he snored. She had looked at him confused, face screwed up. “A tiny bit. But not loud or anything. Why?” She said, and then a few seconds later “Why are you screaming into a pillow?”

-

“Aris.”

“Yeah?”

Thomas sighed. Turning from his computer screen to look over his shoulder at the boy hovering there. (He _had_ to get that bell.) Thomas absentmindedly checked the auto-save on the file. Aris looked at him expectantly, and Thomas’s fingers drummed on the mahogany gloss desk. (It really was tasteful, Thomas would give them that, the way they’d melded futuristic chrome and warm wood.)

And then Aris just kept looking at him.

Thomas waited. Raised his eyebrows. “What’s up?” He asked and Aris started, jumping. The bright tech lab with its state of the art computers and sleek machinery in sharp contrast with the consistent air of _gentleness_ that Aris just seemed to exude. Thomas thinks that the kid belonged in a field somewhere, reading a book maybe. He decides privately it’s a much better fit.

“Oh! Right. Uh, you’re good at code.” Aris says and then, inexplicably, flushes. Thomas looks back to the long lines that spread across the computer screen. The flashing clock in the corner that ticked away the seconds on his practice exam with over half the time left, but almost all of the answers were filled out.

“I guess.” Thomas shrugs. Brenda sitting next to him snorts. Thomas ignores her except to kick her chair slightly. She locks eyes with him, pulling up the engine blueprints that’d she’d been fiddling with, (the one that would need computerized guidance patterns) highlighting the ‘with input by: Thomas E.’ on the title screen, and deleting it.

Ah well, there goes his big shot.

Thomas fought a grin, failed. Turning back to the boy visibly wilting in front of him. “So, Aris. What’s up?” He asked and Aris seemed to shake himself out of his funk.

“Do you wanna come over today? I can’t get my head around the software analysis homework and you’re like, the best in the class.”

Thomas shrugs, turning back to his computer. “Alright.”

“Yeah?” Aris says, grin re-appearing instantly. Thomas hums his agreement, already starting to tap away at him computer again. Brenda coughs pointedly. “Oh!” Aris starts. “Brenda-I didn’t think-do you…want to come too?” He asked hesitantly, shifting from foot to foot.

Brenda’s lower lip pouts out, face falling. “You know Bambi, I _just_ can’t? Wish I could, really. Kills me to say no.”

“Oh. That’s uh. That’s okay.” Aris squeaks out.

Brenda grins and snaps her fingers. “You know what? Just remembered, I _am_ free.” Raising her eyebrows innocently. “Still okay if I tag along?”

Aris swallows, taking a deep steadying breath and sighs. “Yeah of course it is. Rach and Win might come too.”

Brenda smiles, flashing her teeth. “Data.”

Aris checks the time, waving and heading to his locker to gather his things and leaving Thomas and Brenda to tap away silently for a few minutes. Thomas looks over to see Brenda smirking to herself.

“You shouldn’t tease him like that. He’s nice.” He scolds her, only making her smirk more. The clock in the top right corner of his screen ticking away. He turned back to his practice exam, focusing.

Brenda squinted, reaching up to jot something down in a corner of her own screen with her stencil before rerunning the launch simulation, watching the ion thruster output flash green. “You know, I actually really like the kid.”

“That’s you _liking_ someone?” He asked and Brenda laughed, running a hand through her short hair.

“No, really. I do like him. It’s just fun to watch him squirm. Besides-” She says, pausing to make a tiny note. “I’m gonna be seeing a lot of him next year. Might as well make friends.”

Thomas frowned. “Next year?”

“Yeah.” She gave him a strange look. “The little dork jumps at a twig snapping but it’s not like he’s stupid. He’s going to pass, and then we’ll all be going here together. You and I are going to be _living_ here in the fall. It won’t just be the summer program, it’ll be _everyone_. There’s like two hundred kids in our grade during the regular term. There’s a thousand kids at this school. We’ve got to stick together. Time to pick the teams. Which reminds me-we gotta request to be on the same floor of the dorms.”

Thomas swallows compulsively. He watches the clock count down in the corner of his screen. “Bren, why do they make checkpoint kids move onto campus?” 

Brenda sighed. “They say it’s because it’s too far away, outta the district, travel time, distractions...but…” She pauses, which is odd. Brenda doesn’t pick her words carefully, because every word is exactly the word that she wants. “Apparently a borough kid that went here died years ago. Some mugging that went bad or something. It really shook them up, I guess. Made things a little more real. Plus, I can’t even imagine how bad it would’ve looked for the school. Their reputation or whatever.”

“Oh.” 

“They’re scared of what’s out there past the checkpoints Thomas. They’re so far removed from all of it, behind these walls. They think they’re saving us.” 

Thomas snorted bitterly. “Imagine having that much power and being that afraid.” 

“That’s _why_ they made sure they have that much power. Just plain old fear.” She added another note to her screen. “Besides, it’s not like we’re _trapped_ here. All you need to leave campus on the weekends is get your parents to have that interview with the Dean. It’s so fucking arbitrary.”

His lips felt numb. “Why do they need to do that anyways?” He’d already checked, of course. Checked the minute he’d gotten home the day Paige had given him the entrance exam.

Brenda shrugged. “It’s just some classist bullshit. To ‘Make sure the student is going home to a conducive learning environment.’ Or what-the-fuck-ever. I doubt they’ve ever turned anyone _down_. You can’t tell a kid’s parents they can’t see their kid. They just have to have the face to face meeting to check their boxes. More fucking hoops to jump through.”

Thomas thinks about nothing, tapping away. Keys going _click-click-click-click-click_.

“You think we’re actually going to get in?” He asked quietly, staring resolutely at the computer in front of him. Clock counting down in the top right corner. Thomas could almost hear it. _Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick_.

Brenda laughed, soft, doing a quick equation. “Yeah, of course we are Thomas. We’re two of the best. If not _the_ best. We had to be, just to get _in_ the program, despite where we’re from.” She paused before adding, “Well, I’m the best. You’re a close second though.”

_Click-click-click-click-click_ went Thomas’s keys.

“And if you get in, you’re gonna go?” He says, still quiet. _Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick_. Went the clock.

Brenda laughed again, this time disbelieving. “Of course I am, that’s the whole point.”

_Click-click-click-click-click_.

“Aren’t you?” Brenda asked him, turning away from her screen to look at him, frowning. _Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick_.

His fingers had stopped moving over the keys, frozen.

_Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick_.

“Thomas?” She asked.

_Tick-tick-tick-ti._

Thomas stared at his computer screen, the clock flashing angry red zeros in the top right corner.

His time had run out.

-

Thomas had been over to Aris’s enough now that he wasn’t completely rolled over by the sheer ‘holy _shit_ -ness’ of the mansion, and he was more than a little excited to see the Brenda’s reaction to the marble staircases and massive light fixtures and automated voices that asked the guests if they wanted the pool cooled down.

As they’re walking to Aris’s a holo-ad jumps out of the sidewalk directly in front of Thomas, a tall beautiful man using the latest kind of anti-grav BMX bike doing a trick filled lap around him. Thomas sidestepped it, but the bikes company logo, a hammerhead shark, swims after him, circling around his head insistently. Thomas scowls and bats the pixels away. “The fuck?” 

Rachel’s eyebrows raise. “Those bikes are like, all the rage right now with A.I kids. Guess they finally put you in an advertisement demographic.” He looks at her horrified and she laughs ruefully. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a spare ad-blocker at home. I’ll bring it to school on Monday?” 

He nods his head so hard his neck clicks.

“One of us. One of us. One of us.” Brenda chants quietly in his ear before dodging the elbow aimed at her side.

When they walk up the tasteful lawn decorations and through the large marble laced front door Thomas grins in expectation, turning to watch Brenda’s expression. (He tried not to be gleeful with anticipation.)

“Huh.” She says, looking around and quirking an eyebrow and nothing more. “Cool pad. Pool through here?” And with that she’s swaggering forward, careful to brush against as many surfaces as possible with her ripped clothes and fuel stained fingers.

(Fuck sakes. Thomas just wanted one thing. _One. Thing_ _._ )

Thomas helps Aris with his homework (briefly, the whole thing a ploy.) and then he borrows a bathing suit, and Rachel had brought a spare for Brenda, and Winston shows them all how he can do a backflip. And, wow, holy shit he _can_. A really, really good one.

“I did diving as a kid.” Winston admits sheepishly.

Thomas grins over his own flailing awkward doggy paddle. “It shows.”

Brenda leaves before Thomas, waving to them and calling over her shoulder, “Aris I tweaked your hover board a bit. Might have a little more ‘omph’ to it.”

Aris swallowed visibly.

“I’ll try it first, if you want.” Thomas offered, pushing his damp hair back from his forehead.

Aris put a hand to his chest. “Oh thank god.”

“She’s kinda…” Winston trailed off.

“Terrifying?” Thomas offers.

“Fearless?” Rachel says at the same time.

The hover board is, in fact, both fearless and terrifying. The instant he steps on it the underside glows radioactive green and the propulsion kicks in. Thomas rockets forward before falling, tearing a hole in his pants. He gets shakily to his feet, looking at his ripped jeans and sighing. And then he gets on the hover board again. By the time the sun is setting his palms and elbows and knees are shredded but he’s almost managed to stay on for a solid thirty seconds. 

“I’m kinda scared to see what Brenda could do if she used her powers for evil.” Winston says as he toes at the murder-board where it lay unassuming on the ground.

Thomas nods reverently. “Understatement.”

On his way out Aris leads Thomas to the kitchen (which is also massive and chrome and filled with more machines than were feasibly needed) and as he’s giving Thomas a glass bottle of water for the road he says sheepishly “I’m having a party this Saturday, wanna come?”

Thomas thinks ‘No.’ and then ‘ _Fuck_ no.’ 

But what he says instead is “It okay if my friend comes too?” He licks his lips and tastes salt from the pool.

-

“This isn’t a good idea.” Newt hisses in his ear as they wait in line for their I.D’s to be scanned at the border. Feet shuffle forward and the two of them move with the ripple of the line.

Thomas turns and looks over his shoulder and ignores the fact that if he leant just a tiny bit more they could kiss. “It’s fine.” Thomas muttered soothingly and maybe because they are so close to his other life he reaches out and tangles their fingers, squeezing once before letting go and adding “Aris said it’s data, he’s got it all hooked up.” 

They reach the scan and swipe their cards and the cop frowns at the screen in front of him. “Reason for entry?” He snaps out and despite his reassurances to Newt, Thomas’s hackles raise at the tone in the uniforms voice. Tone was everything, after all.

“Thomas!” 

Thomas looks up to see Rachel and Winston waving at him frantically and grinning from the other side of the barrier. And that’s when Newt, a kid with a family so deep in his block it was practically growing roots through his sneakers, experienced the power of influence. 

“They just...let us in.” Newt said quietly after they had been motioned through with an eye roll. 

“Yeah.” Thomas throws a grin over his shoulder at Newt. “They did.” 

As they make their way to Aris’s mansion, a cop car (a much newer model than they were used too, anti-grav and all) drives past and Newt shoots out a quiet knee-jerk “One-time.”

Rachel tilts her head at him, confused. “One time what?”

Newt pulls up short. “I-nothing. You’re Rachel, right?” She nods and Newt nods back, smiling playfully. “You’re his favorite, you know.” He adds.

Thomas squawks, indignant, and the other three laugh. (He’s created a monster.)

“I know.” Rachel sing-songs, brushing her hair behind her shoulder smugly. “But we shouldn’t tell Aris, it’ll break his heart.” Thomas was feeling thoroughly betrayed by everyone in general.

“Good to know.” Newt says, smile growing wider. “So, what’s truffle taste like?” He asks her. “I’ve heard good things.”

The house has flickering color-programmed lights to change in time with the music and neon-drinks that had gold flecks in it and some new party drug called ‘flint’ which Thomas and Newt instantly decide to avoid because rich people were fucking crazy and their party drugs were fucking crazy. The whole mansion packed with kids in clothes that cost more than the monthly rent of any house they’d ever lived in. 

“Shit.” Newt says mildly, only raising his eyebrows. His voice carries over the chaotic sounds and Thomas is, once again, disappointed with the lack of response to the opulence. Was he actually _really_ as dramatic as people said? Thomas takes a deep breath and leads Newt into the fray of dancing bodies with hints of rebellion and protectiveness. After locating the massive supply of spiked juice Thomas parks them in a corner, trying to avoid too much attention from his classmates. It doesn’t work.

Aris was a lot of things, and apparently mild mannered by day and kick-ass party thrower by night was one of them.

“You’re Thomas’s friend!” Someone says for the seventh time and Newt raises his eyebrows before taking a sip of his drink. Their whole summer class was here _plus_ regular A.I students that, he realized, would be their classmates in the fall.

Would be Aris and the other’s classmates, he automatically corrects.

“Yeah. Uh, this is Newt.” Thomas says in a hurry and places his hand possessively between Newt’s shoulder blades because amidst the flow of teenagers in sleek outfits and shiny pre-determined careers Newt pulses under the lights in his black jeans and sneakers and his blonde hair that brushed his sharp jaw and looks dangerous and, maybe, just a bit beautiful. 

And everyone is coming up to Thomas and telling him that his friend is _so_ data and _so_ funny and _why_ hadn’t he brought Newt around earlier.

The guy looks up at Newt and smiles, and Thomas decided privately that he’d never liked him. Newt swirls his cup once and looks into the contents like he’s trying to figure out what the taste is. “It’s this weird berry called Acai.” Thomas supplies maybe a bit territorial and Newt’s lips quirk before he turns back to the seventh ‘Thomas’s friend!’ declaring classmate.

“So, Tommy’s chopping it up with you guys these days? Making us all proud?” Newt asks.

_Tommy_? Thomas does a double take because the last time he checked Newt had only had one drink and definitely wasn’t nine so why was he throwing around the nickname like a fist looking for a face?

Maybe Newt was feeling a bit territorial too.

The guy-Adam-he remembers, smiles brightly. “Oh yeah, he’s like, owning the program. Totally wrecking the curve. He’s going to get accepted for sure.”

Newt laughs, just once. Only Thomas knows that it is full of sadness. Because no one here, no one _anywhere_ on this side of the checkpoint or the other, knows Newt like him. “Never any doubt.” Newt says as he reaches out to trace the edge of a painting frame, a long winding silver thing shaped as a snake that moved and slithered and encased the art like a forbidden apple. Newt turns to Thomas and wiggles his eyebrows. “When you make it big you going to buy me something like this? I could hang it up at Alby’s. Cover that dent in the wall from when you decided you could juggle.”

To stop his heart from stalling Thomas grabs Newt’s hand and tugs. (And this, _this_ was why he hadn’t brought Newt around before, Thomas had acted on impulse _again_ and this was a Huge Mistake.) “Let’s go find Aris.” He says, hurriedly.

At some point during their search of the party they stumble upon a girl whose shirt shifted and changed, the embroidered flower pattern blooming and wilting in a continuous loop. They’re both slightly mesmerized. Newt leans over, lips so close that they brush against the shell of his ear. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore Tommy.” A sunflower petal drifted down the girl’s arm. 

“It’s ‘feeling’.” Thomas rasps out, heart jackhammering, watching the living shirt grow and decay all over again.

Newt quirks his scarred eyebrow indulgently. “What?”

Thomas turns, their faces inches apart and trying to keep his voice even. “It’s ‘feeling’. The line. People always say it wrong. It’s ‘Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.’ People always…they always get that one wrong.”

Newt’s playful smile shifts into something teasing and, yes, dangerous. Maybe just a bit beautiful as well.

“Good thing I’ve got you to set me straight Tommy.”

“Blame Teresa.”

“Don’t try and throw her under the bus. Or house, I guess. Considering current topics of conversation.” Newt says and Thomas can’t help but snort.

They do find Aris, and after Aris gets over his excitement at meeting Newt something in his face falls for a second, sighing resignedly as he looks Newt over once, before shaking himself. Thomas has the distinct impression that he’s missing something again.

“So you’re Thomas’s friend?” Aris asks, strangely hopeful.

Newt grins around the lip of his cup, teeth sharp. “Something like that.” (Thomas’s previously-in-danger-of-stalling heart comes to a full grinding halt.)

Newt talks to his A.I friends and finds common ground as best he could, mostly about plans for the celebration of the opening ceremonies for the Olympics. “Definitely.” Newt says when Winston asks if he’s going to watch them. “The whole block is having this outdoor viewing party. We’re getting a big projector and going to broadcast the thing live on the side of a garage.”

Winston’s eyebrows raise. “Woah. You guys are into sports.”

Newt laughs. “Nah. Not usually. But Miyoko's from our neighborhood so it’s a pretty big deal to everyone.” He tapped Thomas’s side with his elbow. “We grew up with her. She was a few years above us but we went to the same schools.” He adds a bit smugly which, admittedly, is fair.

Winston turns to Thomas with shock. Thomas, who was currently wondering if he could drown himself in his cup. “You never told us that! That’s so cool!” And then Winston frowns when it visibly clicks together, because with all the news coverage, _everyone_ knew where Miyoko was from. “Wait-you’re from Greenvale? That part of the boroughs? You never said.”

Thomas looks at his drink and thinks yeah, he probably could drown himself, if he was determined and had enough of a plucky attitude about it. “Never came up.” Mumbled low and half into the gold-flecked neon beverage. Shame prickling the back of his neck. He wasn’t quite sure exactly _what_ he was ashamed of, only that he was.

Newt smiles, and it’s soft and sharp and happy and sad all mixed together in an aching painful chaotic graffiti-on-top-of-graffiti kind of way. As if the artist couldn’t quite figure out what they wanted to say. “Tommy’s not much of a talker.” Under the throbbing beat something inside Thomas breaks, just a tiny bit.

“Except to grunt, occasionally.” Adds a sweetly evil voice behind him. Thomas groaned.

“Hey Brenda.”

Brenda appeared smiling brightly and locking onto Newt, the two of them staring at each other like mutual apex-predators testing the wind. “Hey.” She says, sliding beside them. Someone in the background was mentioning how cool Aris’s hover board looked.

“Hey.” Newt says back, just as noncommittal, shoulders slouched and hand tucked slackly into his pocket. Someone in the background was asking their friend if they thought Aris would mind if he tried out his hover board.

“I’m Brenda.” She says. Someone in the background was assuring their friend that it’d be fine if he tried out Aris’s hover board.

“Newt.” Newt says. Brenda tilts her head, a twitch of curiosity, and Thomas gets the feeling that he’s missing something important for, like, the fifteenth _fucking_ time that night. And then he’s distracted from _that_ train of thought when someone in the background rockets past them out on the patio, the kid shrieking as they crash Aris’s missile-fast hover board directly into the garden bed.

Brenda shrugs while the kid picks himself out of the shrubbery, dazed and covered in leaves and bright flowers. “I told you it’d have a bit more oomph.” She took a sip of her drink. “So, Newt.” The name drips interest and intention. “What’d you say we show these kids how people do things on our side of the checkpoint?”

Newt smirks.

The music changes and Aris frowns. “Wait. This song isn’t on my playlist.”

Brenda’s grin turns sharp. “I tweaked it a bit Bambi. Gave it a little oomph.”

Aris’s shoulders slump. “ _Please_ stop doing that.”

Thomas reiterates his previous statement of creating a monster.

“You laugh different with him.” Brenda says at some point during the night, after they had taught the other kids how to take popper hits out of a bottle but before Newt had showed them all his trick of being able to drink a beer while doing a handstand. “Not better or worse.” She adds when Thomas looks at her, torn. “Just different.”

-

“They’re nice.” Newt says to Thomas over the rattle of the bus as they sway and jerk and roll their way down the dark street back to their neighborhood. Thomas starts at the sound of Newt’s voice, he'd been lost in thought and quiet and spending most of the past-the-checkpoint bus ride looking at his hands, folding and then refolding the small paper ticket over and over.

Thomas bit his lip, pressing the button for their stop and bracing against the sharp breaks without consciously thinking about it. “They are.” He agrees, the two of them tumbling out onto the grey pavement, soothingly cracked with grass growing through, not at all the well-maintained walkways they’d left behind. The slap of rubber soles on concrete echoing on an empty street had never sounded quite like music to Thomas’s ears before.

“I’m glad I got to meet them.” Newt says quietly as they stop at the corner where they would part, street light buzzing insistently above their heads. Thirteen houses and three empty lots and something hanging unspoken between them.

“Newt.” Thomas whispers, reaching out and grabbing his wrist when Newt starts to turn. He stills. “I just…” Thomas swallows. “I just wanted you to…” He let out a sharp sigh, letting go of Newt’s wrist to take off his hat and shove it into Newt’s hands. Running his fingers through his hair, scratching at his scalp jerkily and pacing in circles. Kicking the chain link fence next to them and making it rattle, the sound of it just as jangled and broken as his thoughts. “I don’t know what I wanted okay?” He said miserably. “I don’t know what I wanted.” His arms fell limply to his sides. _Youyouyouyouyouyou_ is slamming through his head.

“Yes you do.” Newt says simply, and Thomas looks at the way his scarred eyebrow tilts. Biting down on his tongue to still the sharp retort. He hated this summer and he hated this neighborhood and he hated pretentious schools that named themselves after long gone libraries that offered him more. He hated Newt, just a tiny bit.

“Fine.” Thomas snaps out, hands clenching at his sides. “I do know what I wanted. And I like that you met them. And I like that you thought they were nice.”

“And?” Newt leads, scar tilting even more. Thomas squeezed his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to look at him, listening to the buzz of the street light above their heads.

“And I wanted you to see, you know. I wanted. I didn’t like having such a big part of my life…I just like you knowing…you know. About my life. I like sharing things…with you.” Thomas admits through grit teeth and darkness.

There was a long resounding silence. So long that Thomas opened his eyes to see if Newt had just walked away from him. He could do that, sometimes. Step so light that he just disappears. Instead he finds Newt staring at him, shoulders slumped and smiling in defeat and holding Thomas’s hat loosely. A breeze ripples and Newt is pushed forward like the warm air is a hand at his back. He takes one halting step that brings them closer together.

Too close, for out in the open like this, bathed in yellow under the streetlight and looking every bit the young lovers they were.

And it would be easy for Thomas to tilt his chin up, to kiss him. To feel their lips brush and move and lock together, and Newt would sigh before opening his mouth, tongue light and teasing and Thomas would _melt_.

Instead it’s Newt reaching up, placing Thomas’s hat back on his head gently, readjusting it and tugging on the brim once like a caress. “Thank you, Tommy. For showing me.” Newt whispers in a way that makes Thomas’s chest ache. He turns to leave.

“Newt I-” Thomas says a second time, hand snapping out. Newt looks down at where Thomas had grabbed his wrist again, and Thomas lets go, swallowing. “I wanted you to go to the party with me. I wanted people to see me with you. Because that’s really me.” Thomas says around both the Blue in his stomach and the heart in his mouth. Nothing on the inside was where it was supposed to be.

Newt smiles, shadow even longer and leaner than him, an incredible feat. “I liked being seen with you too, Tommy.” He says before turning, hands slipping into his pockets. Thomas watched him go. But Newt wasn’t walking on the side of the street that his house was on, and Thomas realized that he wasn’t going home. He was going to Alby’s. And Thomas wasn’t going home either. He was going to Teresa’s. And _youyouyouyouyouyou_ followed him the whole way.

-

Four weeks before the end of the summer and his program at Alexandria (and it loomed over him ominously.) Newt starts waiting for him by the bus stop every day after school. The first time it happened Thomas tripped in surprise as he stepped down off the bus, falling on the pavement with a fairly embarrassing “ _Shitfuck._ _”_ Newt just watching him from his seat on the metal bench, eyebrows raised and elbows balanced on knees and a poorly concealed grin. The woman sitting next to Newt does a bad job of turning her laugh into a cough.

Thomas pops up like a cork from a fizzing bottle and clears his throat, trying not to flush. “Hey.”

The woman isn’t even _trying_ to hide her laughter.

Newt’s lips twitch to the left and he stands, brushing a stray piece of dirt off Thomas. “Hi.”

“What’re you…” Thomas asks with a lump around his throat. Newt shrugs and starts to walk in the direction of their neighborhood, Thomas trotting along beside him and holding one of the straps of his backpack to stop it slapping against his back.

“Thought it might be nice for you, you know. Someone picking you up. Not having to walk back by yourself.” Newt says, kicking a pebble towards Thomas. Something in Thomas’s chest blooms at that, like the old sped up clips of flowers growing in nature documentaries.

Thomas kicked the pebble back to Newt, because blooming feelings aside, you never _ever_ don’t kick the rock back. That was like, the First Testament of Childhood Friendship and Thomas was nothing if not a devotee. “It is. Nice, I mean.” Thomas says. ‘No one has done that for me before.’ He doesn’t add. Newt smiles.

“Although,” Thomas says, hand gesturing in a see-saw motion. “You’re like my fourth choice but I guess I’ll have to make due.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers.” Newt agrees with a solemn nod, and shoves him too, for good measure. And then reaches out and grabs Thomas wrist, tugging him in the opposite direction of their block. Pulling him towards their garage instead. Their fingers brush the entire way.

And when they’re behind the locked door Newt pushes Thomas up against the wall and kisses him deeply, hands on either side of Thomas’s head and boxing him in. When they break apart for air Thomas tilts his chin up and tightens his grip on Newt’s waist, playing with the edges of his shirt.

“What?” Newt asks him with a smile and a peck. Thomas opens his mouth, closes it. Fidgets with Newt’s shirt. He should say nothing; the Blue informs him. He should make a joke. He should ask Newt why no one ever bugged him to buy new pants when all of them have rips in the knees.

Newt leans down, kissing him soft and gentle and encouraging and Thomas’s walls were being chipped away by the way that Newt’s lips moved against his and the hands that started to run up and down his arms, and when they pulled apart again Thomas gave a fitful tug at the edge of Newt’s shirt. _Youyouyouyouyouyouyou_.

“Pick me up. From the bus stop. After school.” Thomas mumbles before clearing his throat, looking down at his hands. It was barely anything, practically nothing. But it was admitting to Newt that he needed something. And that was monumental. Maybe Thomas was getting braver. Maybe Thomas was _trying_.

So, of course, he had to backtrack a bit. “If-uh. If you’re not busy or anything. And, uh, if. You know. If you want to.”

Newt tilts Thomas’s chin up with his knuckle and for a long silent moment they stare into each other's eyes, light brown meeting dark. Newt grins, leaning in. Lips brushing Thomas's as he says the single word, his voice gentle. “Understatement.”

Something changed between them, after that.

When Thomas wandered around the side entrance to Minho’s house Newt would appear, pushing him up against the gate and kissing him soundly before they turned the corner, the two of them tucked just out of sight. When Thomas waved to Fry and Minho and Teresa and Harriet his hand would shake with happiness.

When they sat at the wire tables outside the deli Newt would reach over and brush a stray bit of sauce away from the corner of Thomas’s lip with his thumb. “Mustard.” He’d say in explanation before turning back to his own sandwich (pastrami on rye) and chew casually, unaffected by Thomas’s rising flush or Minho and Teresa’s flurry of confused (and maybe, _oh god maybe_ knowing) glances.

When they lounged on Alby’s front yard, Newt and Alby and Fry and Thomas himself all gathered around the latest project vehicle, instead of tapping him on the shoulder or bumping their elbows together to get his attention, Newt would brush his fingers down the length of Thomas’s forearm, turning and leaning to speak low in his ear. Thomas would try not to swallow compulsively and smile, goosebumps raising all over.

As they sat on Thomas’s borrowed bed in his-not-his bedroom, door wide open and the sounds of Teresa’s mother humming just out of sight, Newt leant over, tilting his jaw and kissing him. Soft and slow and teasing and when he pulls away they stay close together. Lashes fluttering and gazes locked and in the back of Thomas’s head there was that tiny quiet unacknowledged ( _love_ ).

The grind of gears catching angrily against each other and Minho wincing as he worked the shift with scowling brows. “I fucking _hate_ stick shift cars-oh shit this is the best part.” Minho’s grandmother’s station wagon speakers were jacked up and Thomas couldn’t help but wince and grin at the bass thump as they cruised down the streets of the borough. Teresa next to him in the back, laughing and singing along. Newt riding shot gun, foot propped up on the dash and tapping out the beat. Tilting his head back, messy blonde falling onto his forehead, eyes flashing playfully as they locked with Thomas's.

When they walk down the pavement Newt casually throws his arm over Thomas’s shoulder, not breaking stride and brushing his thumb across Thomas’s collarbone, just once. Wandering down the street, Teresa’s green graffiti tags everywhere, their very own emerald city.

Sitting in Alby’s latest project vehicle in the house garage in the dark, the two of them passing a joint between them and laughing. Then somehow they would end up in the backseat. Breath ragged and hands searching everywhere. And Thomas would let out a quiet gasp and Newt would try not to laugh, kissing him to cover the sound, muttering about ‘C _ompromising positions Tommy_.’

Thomas’s lives start to blend together in a confusing tornado-dizzy way. He would spend his days in the bright classrooms around Brenda and Aris and the others, and his nights with Teresa and Minho and Newt, running and jumping and chaotic energy that infects every teenager once the sun had set and the air was warm and heavy with the smells of summer. And he would fill the rest with Newt.

Just Newt.

_Newt_.

“Just like that?” Thomas asks Brenda while they hunch over a screen, watching a launch simulation play out for a new engine design that they had been tinkering with. Brenda’s constant search for greener forms of energy igniting something in Thomas himself, and he would scratch his head and study data structure and algorithms and click his tongue against his teeth in annoyance occasionally. Doing his best to ignore his teachers pleased stares, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of knowing that their praise meant something to him. (It did. Oh crap it _really did_.)

“Just like that?” He would say to Teresa, shaking the spray can to try his tag again on an old piece of cardboard out back of Alby’s under the strings of lights. Music thumping and flowing between the four of them. Sonya and Harriet there too, as well as Ben and Gally (fuck Gally) and Fry, sometimes Dan, sometimes others. People shouting and laughing and the barbecue sizzling, drops of condensation rolling down beer cans. Meals on paper plates at the picnic bench in the corner under a lazy summer night sky.

“Just like that.” Thomas would hitch into the side of Newt’s neck, eyes squeezed shut and back arching and hands winding into Newt’s hair. Breathless and flushed in Thomas’s borrowed room. Teresa out at the movies and her mother at work. Newt reaching up to kiss him, pressing into Thomas even deeper and moving in a way that had him seeing stars and ( _love_ ) _youyouyouyouyou_ spinning through his head.

“That’s perfect.” He’d say to Aris and Rachel from behind his safety goggles in Mary’s class, the three of them observing the reactions of different compounds, passing the notes along to Brenda as she jotted equations on her screen with the stylus. Thomas and his friends start to spend the occasional lunch period in Mary's classroom after she mentions they could use the equipment. _If_ they were careful. (Mary also mentions to Brenda that she likes the drawings on her most recent assignment. ‘They keep things interesting.’ The teacher added with a laugh.)

“It’s perfect.” He would say with a grin, holding up the old memory chip to his eye like a prospector discovering gold, Minho rolling his eyes and tagging along to all the pawn shops in their area on Thomas’s never-ending need to build _something_ out of nothing.

“S’perfect.” Thomas mumbled as Newt absentmindedly rubbed lazy circles into his back. Thomas’s head pillowed against his chest and drowsing contently as Newt read, leaning against his headboard and holding a book in one hand, propping up against his bent knee. Every time Newt needed to turn a page he would have to reach down and use the arm that was currently around Thomas. If Newt had any complaints about the inconvenience he kept them to himself.

“With me.” Thomas would say when Brenda called across the computer lab asking him where he’d put the battery she’d been working on. And as she stormed past Winston over to Thomas he grinned up at her. “I just wanted to try something. Look, I’ve got this program working that might be able to gauge how we could get it to last longer, here-” (Mary hovering in the background and not-so-subtly mentioning that A.I offered grants to students interested in making prototypes.)

“Okay, no, stick with me for a second.” Thomas would say as he sat next to Newt against the wall, holding up his hands in overexertion, Minho laughing on Teresa’s bed while she lay on the floor and flipped through an old diary to try and find evidence to support her claim in their dispute. “It’s not like I _started_ the food fight in sixth grade. I may have _escalated it_ but I take no responsibility for starting-”

“Be with me.” Thomas says breathless to Newt as they kiss goodnight, the two of them in Teresa’s backyard by the screen door and surrounded by darkness and singing crickets. “We don’t have to tell anyone. We don’t have to change anything. But. Be with me.” Watching Newt freeze and look at him with widening dumbstruck eyes. And then, That Smile.

This was also around the time that Thomas learned something important.

What Thomas learned was this; If being seventeen and with your best friends on a warm summer day could, in fact, last forever, then being seventeen and with the person you were falling for on a warm summer day, was genuinely, in many ways, infinite.

-

The infinite day was actually just like any other Saturday, except for the fact that it was the day that Thomas knew he was in love.

He woke up to blinding sunlight and glass tinted heat and grumbled, earning a sleep-heavy laugh from the shoulder he was using as a pillow. “Bright.” Thomas mutters, eyes closing and frowning, head shaking when the shoulder chuckled again.

There’s a rustle of fabric and Newt was rolling over so they were side by side. “That’s generally how it works Tommy.” Rasped low in Thomas’s ear.

He couldn’t fight the dozing smile that slid onto his face. “Is it?” Thomas affects interest, keeping his eyes closed resolutely both to block out the previously mentioned sun as well as take advantage of the simple enjoyment of listening to Newt’s morning-voice and nothing else.

More shifting and rustling, and then Newt’s fingers running lightly up and down his arm, Thomas feeling them trace and connect the freckles and moles there.

(“They’re so cool. Like morse code on your skin.” Eleven-year-old Newt had said when Thomas had complained about them. All Newt’s words sounding exactly how they were supposed to and sporting a full toothy grin. His small hand poked each beauty mark on Thomas’s face and then they’d scampered down the street, kicking a pebble between them.)

Thomas drifted lazily, the morning rocking him like one of the slow-moving winding rivers of his childhood, smiling and waiting. And a second later Newt’s lips brushed his, and he couldn’t help his smile shifting into something more like a beam, even as they kissed.

“Come on.” Thomas said later, _much_ later, after he’d finally opened his eyes and they’d kissed again and again. Their clothes are barely on when Sonya burst into the house, all loud colors and swinging hair and yelling “Radical dudes.” In an obligatory tone and Thomas has to admire her conviction.

“Hey boys.” Harriet adds with a grin and throwing herself onto the couch with her trademark slouch, grabbing an orange from the bowl on the coffee table.

“What’re you guys doing here?” Teresa asked absently as she sat at the small kitchen table, already pawing through Sonya’s purse and popping open different lipsticks. “Ooooh. I really like this pink one.” She added, turning her attention to more important matters.

Sonya looked over from the cabinet she was riffling through. “Oh yeah I love that one. Hey, do you guys wanna go to the skate park later? I gotta work on my ollie.”

“Dealers choice. We can meet Beth when her shifts done.” Harriet said and Teresa hummed in agreement, testing out lipsticks against the back of her hand. Newt and Thomas might as well be grinning wallpaper.

“Come on.” Newt muttered low in his ear, reaching out and wrapping his fingers around Thomas's wrist, and as they pass Harriet Thomas motions to the orange in her hand and she tosses him one just as they slide out the door.

Drifting out into the morning, bright and warm but not hot quite yet, and for a moment Thomas just stands and breathes the sweet scent of fresh grass. “Come on.” Newt chuckles again, tugging Thomas towards his mother’s car.

“Sonya won’t mind?” Thomas asked even as he was sliding into the passenger seat.

Newt shook his head, keys in the ignition and turning to look behind as he backed out of the driveway. When his body twisted his arm moved out, gripping Thomas’s shoulder and absentmindedly squeezing. The action is so familiar and second nature and _genuine_ it makes Thomas's throat close.

Newt’s mother's Camero was well-kept and obviously maintained, but still showing the scars of every family car. A stain on the back bench from when Sonya had spilled cherry soda when she was seven. The chip in the dash directly in front of Thomas was the result of Minho’s three-week-long obsession with learning how to drum in the eighth grade. Newt said that still, every few years, a piece of an action figure lodged in-between the seats was unearthed.

They swing out and take off, a lazy rolling pace until the swaying trees, wide road opening up in front of them.

And Newt driving is like, kind of a _whole other thing_. At least for Thomas.

The way he reclined in his seat, one arm gripping the wheel lazily and the other hanging out the open window. Maybe swapping hands to hold up his pack of smokes and catch one between his lips, pulling it out by his teeth. Punching the small cigarette lighter. Long legs stretched and the breeze playing through his hair. Looking over at Thomas, mouth turning up as he noticed the scrutiny. Pulling the smoke from his mouth to grin playfully. “What?”

Thomas swallowed. “Nothing.” _(_ _love_ _?)_ Heart slamming against his ribcage. And then- “Where we going?” Turning his attention to the orange in his hand and starting to peel it as a excuse to busy his hands, the whole car filling with the light fresh scent of citrus.

Newt shrugged and stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. “Dunno. Just wanted to get to the car before Sonya.”

Thomas laughed. “That’s so conniving.” He leant over, offering a slice to Newt who took it right from his fingers with his teeth before replacing his smoke and pulling a face.

“ _That’s_ being a sibling. And- _ugh_ -for the record orange and tobacco most definitively does not mix well.”

Thomas shrugged. “There goes my new candy bar flavor. And I really thought I was getting a great mad-scientist-Willy-Wonka vibe going for me. Hey maybe we should try and get T hooked on that instead of Oz.” Reaching up and flipping down the passenger-mirror only for a joint to fall in his lap.

Newt grinned. “Looks like we’ll be getting to something else before Sonya. I can’t believe she’s smoking now. She’s still just a kid.”

Thomas snorted. “We were way younger than her when we started smoking. She’s probably been doing it for years too. You’ve just got big-brother-goggles.” His stomach grumbled audibly, the orange apparently didn’t do its job. “Food?”

“Food.” Newt affirms. 

“El Trompo food truck for tacos?” Thomas asks, grin spreading wide.

Newt nods. “El Trompo food truck for tacos.”

Forty-five minutes later the two of them sit in the shade of an old umbrella fixed to the picnic bench. It took hassle, crossing into the borough directly east of theirs. Not nearly as much as the checkpoints that led to the city center that Thomas crossed daily, those were _serious_. Still kind of a hassle though. But-

“So worth it?” Thomas says with a mouthful.

Newt nods his head around his own full cheeks. “So worth it.”

They climbed back in the car, and if Thomas grins around the paper straw in his mouth as he takes a sip of his take-out cup then, well. Because it’s just-it’s nice, is all.

And if Newt’s hand squeezes his shoulder absently again as Newt turns to look behind the car while he backs out of the food truck filled parking lot, then, well. It’s nice, is all. They drove around the borough next to theirs, one they’d come to often on school trips and sports meets when they were younger. Seeing what was different and what was the same.

When they’re stopped at a traffic light Thomas decided to test out a theory, leaning across the middle of the car, seatbelt cutting into his shoulder. And wasn’t it just kinda poetry, in the corniest way possible, how Newt’s jaw cut a sharp line as he tilted his head slightly to the right to accept the quick brush of a kiss without hesitation. Nothing more than a peck. The stiffness that seems to weave itself constantly in Newt's shoulders going slack like it always did when they were in a part of the city that wasn't their own. No one pulling on his strings. 

But they still had to go back, eventually.

By the time they made it back to Newt’s house the sun was high in the sky and beating down on them, and they parked the car before wandering along the sidewalk under the shade of the massive oaks. In search of a breeze, and knowing just where to find one. This was their block, after all.

They raced each other, as always. Arms and legs pumping before they throwing themselves down on the grassy slope by the bullet train tracks. And for a few minutes it’s just smiles and panting breathing and Thomas was pretty sure he won and says as much. Unbelievably, Newt seems to disagree. 

After Thomas got his breath back he sat up, digging around in his backpack for a minute, pulling out a convoluted block of wire and metal and computer chips that looked, well, _kinda_ like a tablet. Crossing his legs and balancing the thin hand-sized rectangle on his knee, fiddling with the occasional part as he bent over it.

A bullet train sped by on the tracks much further down, just where the hill levelled off, and they both closed their eyes and sighed in satisfaction as the sought-out breeze fluttered past them.

“What’re you working on now?” Newt asks, and even though Thomas is curved over his project he can hear the smile in Newt’s voice.

“Just messing around.” He mutters and there’s a small burst of sparks when two wires connect, Thomas drawing his fingers back with a hiss and popping the pad of his thumb in his mouth.

Next to him Newt shifts, leaning forward and resting his chin on Thomas’s shoulder to peer over him and watch. “Careful there. Genius has been known to be a downfall.”

Thomas laughs, wiggling his injured fingers in Newt’s face. “Clearly no genius here.”

“There’re always bumps on the road to discovery.” Thomas felt Newt’s chin tilt in a smile as he spoke. “Remember Tommy, as long as you write it down, you’re not fucking around, it’s _science_.”

Thomas snorted. “You sound like Brenda.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment of not.”

“Neither am I, to be honest.” Thomas admitted with a laugh, flipping the scrap machine over to look at the screen, taping away at a program. “She’s maybe a serial killer, but kind of brilliant.”

Newt flopped back onto the grass, humming a question mark and Thomas typed away as he elaborated. “Well, like, she does all this crazy shit-you saw what she did to that hoverboard the thing is a fucking death trap- but at the same time she’s got this fucking _vendetta_ to like, save the world.” He rechecks a compressor chip with nimble fingers. “Her whole thing is about green energy, finding a way to live in some kind of sustainable way. To undo some of the damage and try to get the planet back on track. Clean the oceans and clean the air and the whole fucking shebang. And _honestly_? She might. I’ve been kind of fucking around, doing some side projects at school with her, the technology there is unbelievable.”

He paused to yawn, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “We’ve almost got this completely clean-energy battery thing ready to test out. She wants to use it to power the ocean-plastic collection nets, you know how the U.N always says the ones they have now would be too hard to power long-term on a wide scale?”

There is a moment of silence, and then a quiet “Yeah.” (And if Thomas wasn’t so engrossed in his screen he might have noticed the hint of something in the word. But he didn’t, single-mindedness rearing its ugly head.) 

“Well,” Thomas continues, frowning absently as he wiggles a wire. “The way she figures it, if we get the program bugs fixed she might be able to like, you know, _present_ it or something. Maybe make a real test model. There’re a bunch of grants that A.I gives out to students to make prototypes so she’ll be able to do it. Pretty data huh?”

“…yeah.”

Thomas blinks, looking over at Newt. His eyes were closed, face pale. “You okay?”

“Mhm.” Newt clears his throat. “Just a bit tired.” Lying in the grass, hands crossed behind his head for a pillow, face turned to the sun. Another train shoots past them and Thomas watches, transfixed, how the light wind makes strands of blonde dance across Newt’s cheeks, lashes dark against smooth skin. All of it framed by green. Everything smelt like summer sweetness and grass. Something catches in Thomas's chest and stills, just for a moment. 

The sky changed from blue to pineapple yellow to warm orange and, finally, to black. 

Somewhere along the spectrum of color Thomas lay down as well and then somewhere soon after they had gotten an inch closer together. Somewhere after that Thomas had started to trace his fingers lightly along Newt’s forearm where it lay flung in-between them. Just subtle soft touches that somehow felt like earthquakes. Thomas looked at the dim stars and ran the pads of his fingers feather light up from Newt’s wrist, gliding along soft skin and the scrapes of summer and the occasional scar, all the way to the inside of his elbow. And then back down again, feeling goosebumps. 

“Do you think we got it right? About the aliens? Think a bunch of little green dudes are just gonna fly down and say ‘hey’ one day?” Thomas asked gazing up and trailing his fingers along Newt’s arm.

Newt shook his head, smiling. “Nah. No way, are you kidding me? To _our_ planet? After what we did to it? What we’ve done while living here? No chance. If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if they lock their spaceships doors when they drive through our solar system. I bet we're the bad neighborhood in the universe.”

Thomas turned with a grin. “Earth is like the Greenvale of the galaxy.” And that had Newt throwing his head back and _laughing_ , long and loud.

A flicker in the corner of Thomas’s eye and he turned, watching the first of the night’s fireflies rise up over the sloping field of grass. Reaching out and letting one land on his finger, bringing it down close to Newt’s face, the tiny light bug dimming and glowing repeatedly. “To see you better.” Thomas jokes. Newt snorted and Thomas elbowed him in the stomach. And then rolled over to kiss him, just for good measure. 

Just a light brush at first, and Thomas could feel That Smile against his lips. Newt sighed as if lost in a particularly good daydream and deepened it, close mouthed but long and sweet like a held note from a favorite song. Newt’s hand coming up to cup his jaw, thumb brushing once against his cheek, and Thomas tries to compare the shooting-star-bright feeling crashing through him to anything else he'd felt in his life. The closest he could come was the first time Teresa had shown him ‘The Wizard of Oz’ when they were nine.

Everything in Thomas’s world was suddenly turning from black and white to rainbow color.

He realizes two things simultaneously.

That he had homework due on Monday that he hadn’t finished yet.

Also, that he was in love with Newt.

-

Thomas spends a day or two just dealing with the aftershocks of the realization. And then another day after that.

And then it's too late.

They got jumped in a way a lot of people get jumped. There wasn’t a group of four people trying to kick your ass, and then suddenly there was. Exactly five seconds before this happened, they were walking down the street with Newt’s arm draped lightly across his shoulder and talking about what movie they should watch, and then in an instant Newt was shoving him away and telling him to _run Tommy run_.

And then it happened and they were _in it_ , and while Thomas is trying to give himself a little room to work, and managing to land a pretty good punch in the process, he realized this was most definitely more of the fallout from hurricane Dan. And Thomas thinks they might actually be okay, because Newt already had one on the ground and Thomas had landed a nice shot on one of their noses and it was _definitely_ broken from the crunch under Thomas’s knuckle.

So. The count was one down, one failing, two left. Manageable.

And then another guy showed up and then one more after that and Newt let out a small irritated sigh, and this whole thing wasn’t looking particularly data anymore.

They got slammed, and for Thomas his movements went very quickly from ‘this is tricky but I got it’ to ‘Absolute psycho’ (as Teresa once put it long ago). The reason for ‘Absolute psycho’ was the fact that it very quickly became clear that Thomas was collateral, Newt was the intended. So between Thomas’s ‘Absolute psycho’ and the fact that Newt was suddenly _freakishly_ strong and apparently _didn’t feel pain_ at this particular moment, they managed to get two more down and another failing. The only problem was that Thomas had just taken possibly the worst punch to the stomach on earth and was doing his best not to drop to the ground, and Newt had at the _least_ a split lip and a pretty wicked nosebleed.

It was at this point that Thomas’s legs officially became Enemy Number One, skyrocketing past his Eyelids and his Lungs when previously mentioned legs decide to give out and Thomas falls _hard_ to his knees. And then it doesn’t look good at all. And then-

“Cops! Scatter!” Shouted out and echoing on the street from a lookout at the alley opening. The cartoonish tornado of fists and feet that Newt and Thomas had just been sucked into scatters the way it had arrived, instantaneously.

Newt drops to the ground next to him and sucking in massive gasps of air and his nose is bleeding freely, crimson droplets falling onto the gritty ground. And then there’s running feet echoing off the bricks and Thomas surges to his feet, throwing out a fist without thought and if Brenda hadn’t dodged lightning quick to the side at the last moment he would have decked her.

“ _What the fuck are you doing here_ _? You can't be here._ ” She hissed furiously, grabbing both of them under the armpits and hauling them down the alley, shoving them back towards the street, ignoring their dumbstruck expressions. “ _Gogogogogo_.” She snarled, practically throwing them out onto the sidewalk. As they caught their feet under them and took off, Thomas noticed something.

Brenda was running to the other end of the alley and yelling “Saw em go that way!” To the trio that had appeared, pointing in the _opposite_ direction.

Brenda was clearly with the group that had just jumped them, but Brenda was _helping them get away_.

Newt’s hands were curling into fists in his shirt and yanking him forward and then they were _running_. Fast, faster than they had in a long time and it wasn’t playful and they didn’t smile at each other, instead Newt reaching out as they flew down the streets, wrapping his hand around Thomas’s wrist and dragging him when Thomas starts to slow over the ache in his stomach. They don’t stop running until they’re skidding into Alby’s front yard and by then it’s chaos.

Teresa and Minho are at their sides in an instant and Alby is gripping them both by the shoulder and leading them into the house, Fry and Ben (not Gally, thank god not Gally) following right behind them into the living room, Ximena's eyes widening and then narrowing as she takes the whole scene in.

"The _hell happened to you_?” Alby was shouting and Thomas didn’t bother trying to stay standing anymore, stumbling and slumping down onto the couch and gasping for breath. Newt falling against the wall and remaining upright with clearly marked difficulty.

“Got jumped.” Newt whistles out and the mood instantly tenses. Teresa moves over to him, reaching out and pressing a towel to his nose with silent concern, brow furrowed. Minho sits quietly next to Thomas and watches him like a hawk.

Alby’s eyes narrow. “What?” He breathed out, and it’s at that moment that Dan bangs into the house, screen door flying and taking in the scene in a heartbeat, face filling with rage as he looked at Newt’s still bleeding nose and split lip.

“I’ll kill them.” Dan snarls as Newt pushes Teresa’s hand away gently.

The second hangs tense and strained. You could hear a pin drop.

Newt rolls his eyes. And then he lets out a snort and instantly winces, hand reaching up to hover over his nose. “You’ve been starting shit things with people for _weeks_ Dan. What did you think was going to happen?”

Ximena’s head swivels. “ _What_ _._ ” Snapped out like a tree branch breaking and next to her Alby's scowl deepens. Dan’s jaw clenches and he glares at Newt, furious and clearly feeling the sting of betrayal.

Newt brushes Dan away like an inconsequential fly, turning to the others. “Where’s Sonya?” He takes the towel from Teresa with a grateful glance and presses it to his nose again.

“At Harriet’s.” Fry says instantly.

Newt nods. “Can someone call her and tell her to just stay put? Just…to be careful?” Ben hums a affirmative already pulling out his phone and leaving the room.

The matter settled, Newt turns to Alby and Ximena. “They were _not_ fucking around.” He gestured to Dan, and it’s as if there isn’t a drop of blood between the two of them. Apparently after years of simmering, Newt had finally reached his breaking point. “I don’t know what he’s been doing, but he’s got people pissed.”

Ximena and Dan locked eyes, and there was _definitely_ a bit of an unspoken-battle-of-wills-electric-eye-current thing going on between the two, moment made cinematically complete by the tense silence of the room.

Dan looks down. “Out back.” Ximena growls and as she and Alby follow Dan’s defiant shoulders out into the backyard Alby shoots a glance over his shoulder to Newt.

( _You’re in charge_ hangs unspoken in the air and Thomas’s stomach _aches_ as tension bubbles inside him.) Newt nods.

Newt takes a steadying breath and pulls the towel away, nosebleed finally stopped. “Okay. Let’s just spin it down for a second. Teresa, your mom home tonight?” She shook her head, looking at him with a mixture of trepidation and tenderness. “Okay.” Newt repeats, running a hand through his hair and straightening up fully.

“Fry can you call Gal and the others? Let them know what’s up? Just…let people know to be careful. Who knows what the hell Dan did to piss those guys off so bad. But there's a chance they might make it a whole thing, you know. With everyone.”

Fry nodded. “Got it.” He moved to the kitchen, and in the quiet deep voices could be heard speaking loudly outside. Nothing discernible, but the tone was _not_ good. And tone was _everything_. Newt runs his hand through his hair again and Thomas wanted nothing more than to go over and drop his forehead on Newt’s shoulder.

Newt sighs. “You guys gotta go home.”

Thomas is on his feet in an instant, burning stomach muscles now officially Enemy Number One and Teresa sputtering next to Newt.

“I’m _not going_. I’m not just leav-”

“-you're hurt and I'm not going to be _sent_ _home_ _-_ ”

But Minho, surprisingly, says nothing.

Newt waves Thomas and Teresa's objections aside. “You guys need to go.” And then there is a shout from the backyard and voices were raising and Newt was squaring his shoulders. Thomas wanted to scream, watching Newt turn towards the back door. “I gotta deal with this.”

Thomas’s hand snaps out, reaching for him. “Newt wait-”

Newt dodges him, wincing as if the act alone caused him pain. “I’ve got to go figure this out.” He mutters, avoiding their wide-eyed stares. Because, very suddenly, Newt wasn’t just _their_ Newt anymore. Now he was _Matt’s kid_ and this was his life. Casual violence and a system that would, probably, keep him barely (less than a inch, if that) above the deep poverty line forever.

Thomas resists the urge to throw up. “Newt.” He whispers and Newt looks at him with pleading eyes.

“Can you guys just go? Please? I’ll come by after, I promise.”

Something is stinging Thomas’s eyes like tear gas. “Alright.” He mumbles through numb lips.

-

A month before Thomas had started to Itch every time they would go to sleep in Newt’s bed, which was a month before the entrance exam, which had been four months before A.I, which placed this event somewhere between last December and January, by Thomas’s reckoning, on a bright cool day they had shared a joint on the grassy slope that looked over the bullet train tracks. 

(Back before anything had ever happened between them, and how different things had been, even just half a year ago.)

They’d flopped down on the ground and as Thomas watched the grass move in the wind like waves rippling across the field he voiced the concern that had been needling in the back of his mind for days. (One of many. Newt had been...distant. Had been Not Good. Disquiet buzzing thick behind Thomas's eyes like bees. Stinging him when he saw how Newt's smile slipped away the minute he thought no one was looking.)

“Hey Newt? When you start working at the garage after we graduate, we’re still gonna hang out, right?” Thomas asked, trying to keep his tone light and breezy and unconcerned. He does a pretty good job of it, if he says so himself. (He actually did a really bad job of it, but let’s let the poor kid have this one.)

Newt takes a hit of the joint moving between them, shaking his head and exhaling. “Nah. Half-a-lifetime is more than enough.” And then he grins, playful and confused. “Of course we are. What’d you think was gonna happen? It’s not a cult.”

Thomas shrugged, maybe feeling a bit embarrassed. “I know. But Dan and Fry and Gal and Ben and all them…and Alby and Ximena and the others…you guys all hang out _together_ with other people and stuff but everyone…who’s parents were, like, you know…” _I'n on it_ hangs in the air between them and Thomas clears his throat. “They all, you know. You all keep it close. It’s like this…thing, with you guys. Like, when you have those little welcome parties whenever someone starts working there. It’s just you guys. And then…when someone works there they just kinda…it’s already happening with Ben. He’s already spending almost all his time with Gal and Dan and Fry.”

Newt shrugged. “It’s nothing…official, or anything. Nothing like that. They used too have this whole thing, apparently. Like, before. Back with Vince and Alby’s dad and my…you know. They’d have this big initiation. They’d literally beat _crap_ out of whoever was getting jumped in, was joining the operation. Back when that stuff was a lot more serious.” He shrugged, letting his legs stretch out and leaning back on his elbows, wiggling a brow at Thomas. “They still do it you know, some crap about tradition. Ximena hates it. Calls it 'Toxic masculinity bullshit.' She's right, but they still do it, sometimes.”

Thomas sputtered but Newt waved off his concern. “It’s nothing big anymore. Just tradition. Now it’s just one punch, from whoever got in last. A metaphorical chain or some bullshit that someone thought up. It’s just a thing. All our parents knew each other. We were all practically raised together.” His cheeks tinted just the slightest bit pink. 

Thomas takes the offered joint, inhaling greedily and exhaling, making small smoke rings in the chill of the afternoon, both of them finally graduating to long-sleeve shirts. Never jackets, not anymore, not with the carbon tipping point far in the rear-view mirror. “Huh. So, one punch? That’s not so bad, I guess.” He admits and Newt nods. Neither of them particularly unfamiliar with the sensation.

“Yeah not bad.” Newt agrees.

“And then you’re just in it?” Thomas asks.

“Pretty much.”

“Nothing really changes?”

Newt shrugged again. “Not really, not day to day. It’s not the same as it used to be though, you know, back when things were bad. Might have a hard time getting a job when it gets around, but I’m going to go work at the garage with Al anyways, it’s good money. If the cops care enough and you cause shit then they might put a strike on your social file, I know Dan has one. He can’t leave the borough anymore. Can't get out at all, even on a day pass.” His hands opened and closed.

“Not Alby or Ximena though. They don’t have anything on their files yet. But they've never caused crap like Dan has, they’ve been careful. And besides, the only thing that’s really different is that you look out for the neighborhood. Just the usual stuff that Ximena and Alby and the others do. Make sure that everyone knows, you know, not to fuck with the neighborhood, that people are looking out for it.”

Newt looks at the roach of the joint, offering it to Thomas, and when he shakes his head Newt crushes the cherry against his shoe, checking to make sure it was out and then flicks it away. “I get that it’s tradition and whatever but it’s fucking dumb. Not the looking out for the block part, I get that. Cops don’t care or do shit. It’s the other stuff.”

“Like what?” Thomas asks, maybe a little leading. Newt had always been closed lipped about the past, and decidedly noncommittal, and although it was an undisputed fact that Newt would be following in his father and his uncle and his cousin’s footsteps, he’d never really spoken much about how he actually _felt_ about the whole thing. _And now he was_ , and maybe if he let it drift out, here, to Thomas, his eyes might stop seeming so dark and far away.

Because they had each others back, the two of them.

Newt let out a long sigh, knees bending and leaning forward to brace his elbows on them, staring out at the train rails. “It’s just…” His eyes narrow. “It’s just…I don’t have the same… _thing_ with it, that the others do, you know? Don’t get me wrong, what Alby and Ximena do is great. And Alby’s always looked out for me. I get that it’s this big part of people’s lives and that they did a lot of good back when the neighborhood was bad. And I can’t judge. They were doing what they had to do to get by, to survive. To look out for their families. But it...it’s better now that Vince is gone-” Newt stopped, eyes cutting across to Thomas sharply. “Not that I think it’s good he got locked up. I don’t. It fucked Dan up royally.” 

Thomas nods, swallowing once and Newt shakes his head to clear his thoughts. “But...when Vince looked at me, he saw someone else, you know?”

The waves of grass rippled. “Yeah.” Thomas says, voice hushed. Before she had evaporated from his life his mother used to look at him and her eyes would go unfocused, far away. He wonders sometimes if that’s why she left him, in the end. Maybe Thomas had started to look too much like someone she didn’t want to remember. 

Next to him Newt clears his throat. “It must’ve been…well. My…he was Vince’s best friend. And Vince watching my mom go through it…you lose your best friend and watch your sister lose her partner too?” He shrugged, but the motion is jerking and uncontrolled, more of a flinch than a casual gesture. “I wonder sometimes if they would’ve even told me, you know? About him. If it wasn’t for the fact that everyone around here knew him. They couldn’t _not_ tell me, not really. But if we’d moved away or something. If we'd gotten out of Greenvale. They might’ve just said Alex was my dad too. That he was both our... that Sonya and I were full siblings.” And in his tone there was a tiny hint of longing. And tone was, after all, everything.

“I never even met him. I wasn’t even born.” Newt admits shakily, pulling up fistfuls of grass, and Thomas doesn’t know what makes him do it, but he reaches out. Laying his hand on Newt’s and Newt looks up, face oddly blank.

“You can be whoever you want to, you know that, right?” Thomas says. Newt blinks at him, taken aback, and Thomas clicks his tongue once before smiling. “Like, don’t get me wrong. The garage and the others are great, and you’re going to do great with them, you’ve seen how different they are now that Ximena’s in charge and made it practically legitimate. And you’re going to make them even better. You guys keep the neighborhood safe. But you’re not just ‘Matt’s kid’. You’re _you,_ Newt. You’re not _alone_ in this. You’re with your family. Fuck anyone’s idea of who you are or who you should be. Alby trusts you, and he’s here for you, and I trust you and you _know_ I’m here for you, so…just be you. Be _Newt_. That’s who everyone loves, anyways. And…”

(In the back of his mind there was a tiny echo of a backpack falling to the floor with a thump and Thomas heard his younger self calling ‘Mom?’ in his dark empty house.) 

“And you should be with the people that love you. That’s all that matters in the end.” Thomas finished with a smile and a shrug.

Newt stared at Thomas searchingly, his face changing in the strangest way. Eyes going soft and shining. Cheeks tinting pink. Lips turning up at the corners and parting just the tiniest bit to reveal a flash of white teeth, almost a smile, but deeper. A tiny laugh, more an exhale than an actual sound escaped his mouth. In all the years Thomas had known him, he’d never seen that expression on Newt’s face before.

It looked good on him.

(Thomas would eventually come to know this smile as That Smile. The slow little one, the one that he would give Thomas when they were done what they’d done.)

And then it was gone, and Newt was clearing his throat and looking out over to the rails again, watching the approaching bullet train in the distance.

Thomas taps Newt to make him look at him, grinning and floating up into the sky as if to follow the smoke rings from before. “Hey, you better not pull any punches with me.”

Newt’s face screws up. “Huh?”

Thomas rubs his eyes with closed fists and yawns, leaning back and tilting his face to the sun, letting his traitorous eyelids slip closed. “Well, if I go after you, because, _obviously_ you’re going to get me in on the whole garage-thing as well, then you’ll be the one punching me, right? So, you better not pull your punch, even if I’m your best friend.” He reasons lazily. There’s a long silence and Thomas opens his eyes, catching the tail end of Newt’s stricken expression before he made it disappear.

Thomas frowned in confusion. “What?”

The bullet train screams past them and Newt shakes his head like he’s trying to get water out of his ears. “Nothing. Just-” A sarcastic smirk, mostly convincing, slides onto his face. “Just, you know. Going to savor the moment. Getting to absolutely deck you without you being able to do anything.”

Thomas grinned, turning back to the sun and letting his eyes close again. “Nah.” He says, grin getting wider. “You’re gonna pull your punch.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because.” Thomas had said simply. “I know you better than anyone.”

He could practically hear the side of Newt’s mouth quirking upwards into something more genuine. “Understatement.”

-

Sometime after the three of them had walked numbly into Teresa’s house but before Thomas had mumbled something about taking a shower his aches and pains had evolved into a low and mostly ignorable throb. The shower helped _exponentially_ and when he’s in fresh clothes and watching TV silently on the couch he doesn’t feel better, necessarily, as much as he feels a bit more _human_.

He prods the memory of Brenda’s hissing face and still finds it too hot to touch, letting it simmer in the background. Teresa chews a small curl of hair and Minho shifts noticeably.

“Do you think it’ll be okay?” Minho says soft to the quiet house in general.

Teresa spits the curl out of her mouth. “I dunno.” Her eyes trace Thomas’s face. “Are you okay?” She asked hushed. Thomas shrugged. Minho has an echo of sense and throws some kind of frozen pizza into the oven. As the three of them sit on the floor and eat cross-legged in a circle, Teresa brushes her hair back and says in a slightly watery tone, “Can we watch The Wizard of Oz? The original? I think we need the original.” Minho and Thomas nod franticly, because fuck that sounded _good_.

With a weak laugh Minho runs a shaky hand through his hair. “We definitely need the original.”

Minho ends up crashing, and he falls asleep on the couch about ten minutes before Teresa falls asleep on the loveseat. Thomas had just finished covering them with blankets when Newt slips through the door silently, locking it the minute he’s inside. And then they just stare at each other.

Newt’s nose wasn’t swollen (which was good, clearly not broken.) and he’d obviously had a shower as well from the lack of blood and the damp hair and change of clothes (redundant, it was still black jeans and a t-shirt that stretched across wiry broad shoulders and hung loose over a slim waist.)

Thomas swallows and nods his head towards his-not-his room and Newt follows him, closing the door with a soft click, leaning against it.

“How bad is it?” Thomas whispers and Newt shakes his head and crosses his arms.

“I don’t know really.” He went to bite his nail, scowling and re-crossing his arms instead. “Can you-could you find a way for me to be able to talk to Brenda? Just so I can _explain_ or something. Or find out what Dan did to those guys to make them so pissed.”

Thomas nods instantly. “We have Bio together first period. I’ll talk to her the minute I see her. We’ll figure it out.”

Newt swallows. “Thanks.” Mumbled to the carpet.

Thomas reaches out to touch his shoulder and Newt _flinches_ away, looking to the side and jaw working furiously. Thomas freezes.

“What?” He asks, lips going numb again.

Newt blinks rapid fire, refusing to look at him. Grinding his teeth and crossed arms tense and stiff. “Thomas-listen.” He starts and Thomas takes a jerking step back, because he _hated_ the tone in Newt’s voice, the ache and the quake and the barely-keeping-it-together-ness of it all. (And, remember, _tone is everything_.)

“What the fuck are you doing?” Thomas asks quick and sharp and maybe a touch too loud, because they both look towards the living room for a second before Thomas speaks again, volume dialed right down. “Newt it’s going to be fine. I’ll talk to Brenda, I bet she’ll be able to help.” He stepped forward for another attempt, doing his best to smile and wrapping his arms around Newt’s waist and trying not to go cold when Newt doesn’t uncross his arms and pull him in, instead keeping them up like a barrier.

“You just _know_ Bren’s got major clout with them. It’s _Brenda_. She probably tells them all what to do.” Thomas continued, joking weakly. Reaching up to kiss Newt and most _definitely_ going cold when Newt’s lips barely move against his, pulling away far too quickly.

“ _Tommy_.” Newt says low and dangerous when Thomas tries to kiss him again and it’s like a metaphorical punch to Thomas’s gut. (Thomas really wanted to stop getting punched in the gut now.) He steps back, wincing at both the metaphorical and the physical and Newt squeezes his eyes closed.

“Newt-”

“That shouldn’t have happened.”

Thomas shrugged, relieved, at least, that Newt was talking. “Well, no, but Dan’s been a bit of a fuck so here we are-“

“No. That shouldn’t have happened _to you_.” Newt clarifies, shaking his head, his eyes staying closed as if the sight of Thomas is horrible to him.

Panic rising inside Thomas like the melting seas. “Newt it’s _fin_ _-_ ”

“What would happen if you and Aris were walking to his house to watch a movie?” Newt shoots out at him, refusing to open his eyes and Thomas is so taken aback he feels his mouth pop open in surprise, eyebrows rocketing up.

“I-what?” Thomas stutters dumbstruck. And then he’s trying to fight a grin of disbelief and tilting his head in confusion. “You’re not…Newt, come on, _Aris_?” He finishes with a laugh. Newt does open his eyes at that, and they’re sharp and _furious_.

“I’m serious. If you and Aris were walking back to his house to watch a movie? What. Would. Happen.” He asks again.

Thomas’s grin slips away. “Newt-”

“ _Nothing would happen_. Nothing would happen. You’d go and watch a movie. You wouldn’t get _jumped or rolled up on_ because you _wouldn’t be with me_. You and Aris would swim in his pool and order food and just _watch a movie_. That’s it.” Newt whispers, expression vicious, and Thomas takes another step away. The backs of his knees bumping against his bed and he sits because his legs are definitely Enemy Number One and can’t seem to stop giving out on him. The mattress shifting under his weight, looking down at his hands, knuckles cracked and scabbed and Thomas does his best to make the cuts inconspicuous.

“It’s not like this shit doesn’t happen to loads of people. We got in a fight. We’ve all gotten in fights.” Thomas mutters rebelliously, before adding “I live here too, you know. It happens.”

Newt worries his lower lip for a second. “You don’t have to live here. It doesn't have to happen to you.”

Thomas goes cold and empty, all his organs scooped out and leaving him hollow. “I’m not getting in. I told you. I’m not going.” He says low and looking at the ground and lower lip in danger of wobbling. So he bites it sharply instead and the sharp sliver of pain grounds him. When had he started to react with sadness instead of anger when Newt spoke of him moving away? And what, exactly, did it mean?

Maybe Newt notices the difference as well, because he does that thing where he moves like a shadow (he’s so _fast_ Thomas thinks absently) and suddenly he’s in front of Thomas and then he’s pushing Thomas up the bed and onto his back. Climbing on top of him and kissing him like he was breathing for the first time in hours. Thomas tries not to shake with relief and reaches up, hands sliding under Newt’s shirt and up his back and counting the knobs of his spine with his fingers instead of his eyes.

(The last individual of a species is called a ‘Endling’ his brain reminds him.)

Newt sighs into his mouth and moves his lips in gentle sweeping motions, drawing Thomas out and thawing him and soon Thomas’s hands are clutching instead of tracing, Newt resting in between his legs and it’s just the quiet sounds of them in the darkness.

A hitched sigh. Lips parting and meeting. A hand running through hair. The rustle of fabric against fabric and the tiny groan that Newt makes when Thomas rolls his hips insistently upwards.

To Thomas it felt like being _safe_ , like _belonging_ to someone, like belonging _with_ someone. He was in love. Not just in love, he amends. He was first-love-gotta-have-you-can’t-live-without-you-might- _die_ -without-you in love. It was _terrifying_.

And it _terrified_ him the way that Newt held him so tight, the way that Newt was slowing down, the way that his lips were moving less and less, simply responding to Thomas instead of meeting him equally.

“Tommy.” Newt whispers with finality and Thomas doesn’t let him keep going, kissing him again to make Newt stop.

“Don’t.” Thomas says ragged and Blue might as well be dripping out of his mouth. “Don’t.” He says again with a different kind of hitch in his voice. “Just don’t. Okay? Listen, Newt.” Thomas’s words pin-wheeling. Newt pulls back and braces himself on his arms and knees, hovering above him and Thomas reaches up to trace his neck and then his shoulders. “Listen.” He continues, only a tiny bit frantic. “I know I fucked up a lot of this in the start and that’s on _me_ but just-just don’t. I know everything before was awful and I _get_ that you wanted to keep things quiet, because, you know. But just, just don’t. I’m not getting in and I’m not going and this whole summer has just been one big fuck up except for…” He trailed off and the silence is _deafening_. Thomas tries to breathe and runs his fingers up and down Newt’s neck, lingering at his collarbones as if that motion alone could fix everything.

Newt looks at him strangely. “Tommy do you…do you think I wanted to keep this quiet because of you?”

Thomas’s hands still. “Yeah.” He mumbles around the lump in his throat, staring resolutely at the ceiling just behind Newt’s ear.

“What?” Newt stares down at him in shock before his face shifted. Something sad and teasing mixing in his eyes, giving one weak laugh. “Only you would think it was because of you. No, Tommy.” Newt reached out, smoothing his hair, and Thomas can’t stop his eyelids from fluttering closed at the tenderness of it. Newt repeats the motion, speaking soft. “It’s that...I can’t...I’m not...”

Newt took a deep breath. “I’m not _safe_. With all the...today. And not _just_ today. With all the…” He waved his hand in the general direction of the neighborhood they both loved and hated before bringing it up to tap the side of Thomas’s head softly with his knuckle. “And you’re so _smart_ Tommy. You’re going to get into that school and make it out of here and be something great.” And then he leant down, kissing him light as a feather, lips barely touching before pulling back, wearing longing like a mask on his face. “And I’ll...I’ll be here. And at the Convenience store one day I’ll hear your voice on the radio, and I'll…I’ll smile.” Newt finished thickly, staring down at him. 

Thomas tries to breathe, fails. Tries to speak. Fails. ( _Youyouyouyou_ _)_ Tries again, with shaking cracked success.

“You’re smart _too_ Newt. You don’t-you could apply-get in-”

And Newt kisses him, sweet and chastise and the back of Thomas’s eyes start to smart and burn. ( _love_ ) _Youyouyouyou_.

Newt pulls away only to trace his face, thumb running along his cheek and back to his jaw. “You have to go Tommy. I won’t let you give this up. You can get out of here. You know it’s your only chance. You need to go. And you can’t come back. You should just _go_.”

For a moment there’s nothing but the very particular silence of hearts breaking for the first time.

“I love you.” Thomas says miserably in the dark room, and he’s finally brave enough to admit that he’s begging.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is simply called 'Newt', and I can't wait to post it.


	4. Newt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened almost EXCLUSIVELY to 'Almost (Sweet Music) by Hozier while writing this (which sounds a bit weird but honestly I could listen exclusively to Hozier for a Terrifyingly Long Time). 
> 
> Just another big thanks for all the comments/kudos/bookmarks, every single one has me floating!

They had told him when he was four.

Newt wasn’t sure what had spurred it or when they’d had the conversation, or if his mom and Alex had a conversation at all about telling him. Maybe it had been decided in the moment. Maybe it hadn’t been decided at all.

Maybe it had been the way that Newt had looked up at Alex, smiling wide and holding Sonya’s tiny chubby toddler fingers and shouting excitedly, “Dad look! Sunny’s walking with me!”

How he’d frowned when his mom and Alex had exchanged a flurry of frantic looks, his mom’s mouth had settled thin, and the way that Alex had tipped his head imploringly at her, ‘ _Do we have too?’_. Alex, who was tall and strong and would sit down with Newt and tell him about all of the things he'd seen, the places he'd been on his drives, all the places he would go, outside the city and into the _world_.

And in his mind, sharp already, even at four, Newt understood that his parents were having a wordless conversation in the way that adults did when they wanted to say something out loud but were too afraid to. Sonya had wavered and Newt tightened his hold on her, and, really. How could she even stand in the first place? Cheeks shaped like beach balls and a smile so big it should have tipped her over just from the weight of it. He’d loved her even more, in those last moments before he knew.

“Dad look!” Newt had chirped again, just to get them to stop staring at each other with those tight sad lines on their faces.

And then Alex had reached down and taken Sonya, and his mom had crouched down, put her hands on his shoulders, soft but with comforting pressure and done a pretty good job of hiding the fact that she was crying. “Oh, sweetie no…”

So even though Newt had never remembered a life without Alex, and the man had always _always_ been good to him, he wasn’t his father. And Newt was _never_ allowed to forget it. Little things stuck out after that. How Vince was always nice but stiff around Alex, how Alby’s dad, Henry, who was the warmest man on the planet, was always just a tiny bit reserved. How Newt went to every barbecue, every holiday party, every event at Alby’s parent’s house, trotting down the street beside his Uncle Vince and his cousin Dan. That his mom and Sonya would _sometimes_ come and it would be fine, but a bit sad. That Alex rarely came. _Never_ came. They blamed it on his schedule, being a trucker and all, but.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the four of them, Newt’s father, Newt’s mom, her brother Vince, and Henry had all been best friends since childhood. They had grown up on the block together, after all.

He’d known Minho and Teresa as long as he could remember too, their moms growing up in the neighborhood as well. “So he isn’t your dad?” Minho had said, face wrinkled up on the playground during recess when they were six and Newt had finally gotten up the courage to tell them. 

“Nah.” Newt had said, drawing swirls in the sand with his finger, crouched down and trying to make himself smaller.

Teresa had stopped from her failing attempt to build a sandcastle and looked at him, blinking owlishly with those massive eyes of hers. Newt had always been a bit terrified of how old they seemed. “Is he still nice to you?”

“Yeah.”

She had nodded. “Good.”

And that had been that. He was _Matt’s kid_ and not Alex’s son and Vince and Henry wouldn’t say much about his father (and, admittedly, Newt didn’t ask) but they treated him as one of their own. And sometimes when he was walking down the street in between Ximena who was the oldest and Dan who was the tallest and Alby who was his absolute _favorite_ , people in the borough would look at them. How a lot of his friend’s grandparents, who could remember back before their fathers had brought some tenuous level of security to the block, would notice them and smile.

But that a lot of his friend’s _parents_ always seemed just the tiniest bit hesitant when he showed up on their doorstep asking if Teresa or Minho or whoever could come out and play. (Because at the end of the day, even if they had been, ‘diet-cola robin hoods’ as Newt would one day refer to them, Vince and Henry were still kinda car thieves. Not in any provable way, mind you.)

How there were some kids in school that he wasn’t friends with on _principal_ , because things had gone down between their parents at some point. How at home he pushed himself to the fringes, because his mom and Alex and Sonya were a _family_ and Newt was a sad reminder of someone long gone.

How the older he got the more time he started to spend at Alby’s house, playing in their backyard and eating at their kitchen table (and it was big and the wood was warm and sometimes Newt would run his hands along it during dinner just to feel the grain under the pads of his fingers). Or at Vince’s, and even though it was just Vince and Dan and they were both rough around the edges, he never felt like a post-it note that screamed ‘ _Don’t forget!’_ every time his mom looked at him.

He got told a lot that he was ‘way too young’ to be as resigned, as sarcastic as he was. To be just _done with it_.

“Stop giving me reasons to be.” Newt would answer dryly.

Newt grew up, and he grew a bit more inwards, keeping close to Teresa and Minho and Alby and a bit Dan. Not Sonya, even though it seemed like all she wanted in the world was for him to hug her. A lot of the time he’d just dodge her when she trailed around behind him day after day.

Scraped knees and summers and school and fights and play all blurred into one whirling colorful wheel of youth and Newt started to notice that people treated him a little different from other kids when they’d see Vince and Henry and their friends laugh and ruffle his hair to make him pout and snap.

(It was tough sometimes, Newt decided, being the baby of the group’s children. Sonya was loved, sure. Absolutely adored, you couldn’t not. But she was _decidedly_ not in _it._ His mother had drawn a circle in the sand around Sonya that was as impenetrable as the checkpoint walls.)

Alby started to teach him how to fix a car when he was eight, and one day at school an older kid had sneered at him and said that he was ‘just some car-jacker’s bastard’. And, sure, his front teeth had been knocked out in the scuffle but they were loose anyways, and the other kid had come off _decidedly_ worse because Dan had taught him how to fight ages ago. But that first trip to the principal’s office had been, in a lot of ways, the beginning of the end for Newt. Especially in the eyes of the school that was no stranger to his family.

It also prompted him to finally ask the questions that had been knocking around in his head. It was hard, and more than a bit uncomfortable when he’d gotten the real story from Dan. He’d known, he’d been almost sure. He’d put it together. But. 

Alby there as well, the three of them sitting on the brick wall of Alby’s parent’s backyard and legs swinging.

“So they stole cars? Never would’ve guessed.” Newt asked, pushing shaggy soft baby hair off his forehead. Eight and skinny and already too sarcastic for his own good. 

Alby had opened his mouth, frowning, but Dan had nodded with all the wisdom of an eleven-year-old and spoke over the other boy. “Oh yeah. They were a really big deal. They had crazy flex. And they used a lot of the money they got to help make the borough better. They bought the school tablets once. They helped people that needed money. And all the cops know they did it too, but see, they can’t prove anything, because our dad's are too smart for them. That’s why cops are always giving them a hard time. But fuck the cops. They don't mean shit.” 

Newt looked down and picked at a scab on his knee. “Real life Robin-hoods.” 

Dan opened his mouth again but Alby beat him to it this time. “Well, all our parents were best friends. Since they were kids. Younger. They looked out for each other. Just like us.” He smiled, reached out and ruffled Newt’s hair and he feels himself scowl and try to pat it back down. Alby only laughs before continuing. “And they were just protecting each other. Their family.” His hand fell onto Newt’s shoulder. It felt heavy. It felt warm. It felt like belonging. “Just like how we’re family, and we’re always going to look out for each other, the same way they did.” 

He grew up a little more and grew inward a lot. Sharp and playful, but just a tiny bit reserved. Because, a lot of this seemed to be being looked at through rose tinted glasses. Maybe it made the act of looking a bit easier.

And then Thomas had moved back.

“He’s right behind us.” Minho had whispered, the three of them staring resolutely forward, walking to school with scuffled sneakers and sensing the sad pouting presence trailing along behind them like a lonely shadow.

Teresa’s head twitched like she wanted to turn but was holding herself back, speaking low to the two of them. “He used to live here with his mom and dad. But then his dad got sick with addiction and his mom got so sad she got sick too, and he had to go live with his grandma. But then his grandma died so he had to come back.”

Something in Newt stirred. “Where’d he live before?” He asked while rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. Teresa had shrugged.

“South? I forget the name. It was long though. I heard my mom talking about it last night on the phone.” 

“Oh.” Newt said, rasping and frustrated with the way his words never came out quite right. And then he had turned around to look at the freckled kid wearing a frown as long as the name of whatever state he had come from.

“You’re the new kid.” He lisped, watching how the new kid looked at him guarded and lost and maybe with just a bit of hope, light catching in the richest shade of brown eyes that Newt had ever seen.

 _‘He has nice eyes_.’ Newt thought absently.

And that had been, in a lot of ways, a different beginning of the end for Newt.

When he was explaining to his mom and Alex why he’d gotten in a fight on the _very first day of school,_ they’d paused in their seats at the kitchen table, Newt sitting opposite to them and bouncing his leg with guilt and trying to glare at Sonya, who was making faces at him behind her parent’s backs.

“Who’s Thomas? You don’t have a friend named Thomas.” His mother asked him, eyebrows pulled down and barely controlling her concern and frustration and maybe fear, because Newt ‘ _had to stop doing this_.’.

Newt had rolled his words around in his mouth to try and let them fall out more naturally. “He’s the new kid. The one who just moved here. He lives down the street and it was his first day at school here _ever_ mom and those kids wanted to beat him up just _because they could_ and-”

Her eyes had widened in understanding, hand going to rest lightly on her cheek. “I thought he was living down south with his grandmother?” She asked, eyes inexplicably sad.

Newt shook his head. “Nah, his grandma died so he came back to live with his mom. He’s from Louisiana, he told me. He’s seen a _ton_ of alligators. They come right up onto the street because they’re hungry and looking for food and a lot of their swamps are gone. Thomas said they’re like pigeons but they taste a lot better.”

His mom’s frown had deepened. “That poor boy.” She had murmured, more to herself than him. Newt’s pretty sure that she wasn’t mad at him about the fight after that. She hadn’t even grounded him.

And, quite suddenly, Newt had made a third best friend. And everything was good.

Thomas was funny and fun and _genuine_ and honestly more than a little bit dramatic. Minho loved him because he was fast and brave and Teresa loved him because he was kind and rebellious. He was also possibly the smartest kid ever, and only Thomas didn’t seem to realize it.

“Thank you, Thomas! I don’t know how you got it to work but thank you.” Their teacher would gush whenever Thomas would fix the screen projector that was on the fritz or the busted internet modem that would flash all its red lights angrily back at the class. As if it was frustrated as well. Couldn’t all these teachers and kids see it was _trying_ but that _damn_ they needed to update their systems and _where the hell was that new public educations budget that the State Governor had run his entire platform on_?

Thomas would disappear behind whatever technology was failing them that particular day and sit with his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth, brow furrowed and fingers moving, and then quite suddenly, it would be able to work again. “No big deal.” Thomas would say with a shrug and sit back down.

One spring night about half a year after Thomas had moved back, like they always had before, the street lights buzzed to life above their heads when night fell. As one they looked up. 

“Lights are on. I gotta go home. Night!” Minho said, trotting off down the street towards his house without another word. It was, after all, the universal law of childhood that once the streetlights went on you had ten minutes to get to your own front yard.

Teresa also already turning to skip down the sidewalk towards dinner. Calling “Bye guys!” Over her shoulder. 

Newt flicked Thomas’s elbow once in parting affection. “Playground tomorrow after school?” 

Thomas nodded. “Sure.” Sitting down on the curb and fussing with his shoe laces. Newt frowned. 

“Aren’t you going home? The street lights came on.” 

Fingers twirling, the rabbit going around the tree and down the hole. “Yeah. Just wanna practice for a minute.” 

“Oh...okay. Night Tommy.” 

Thomas smiles up at him. “Night Newt.” 

But when Newt turned and looked back down from his house’s front path, he could easily make out the small bump sitting on the sidewalk curb. 

Thirteen houses and three empty lots and Thomas alone between them. 

One day when Newt slipped quietly in Alby's kitchen from the backyard to get a drink of water, sweaty and gritty from playing in the dirt, he had noticed Henry and Vince standing together in the front door, heads bent and talking in low serious voices, faces hard. "It'll get handled." Vince said, and Henry had nodded, and then they'd noticed him, both of their expressions instantly shuffling like the cards of a deck into something warmer, kinder. "Hey string bean. Dan out there with you?" Vince said with a smile. Newt had nodded, silently, and wondered if his other friends parents stood in doorways and spoke quietly about things being handled.

He didn't think so. 

No one ever came for Thomas after school. Not once. When Minho’s dad had asked him who was picking him up after the spring recital, the neighborhood dark and the shadows of leaves long under the street lights, Thomas had said brightly “It’s okay.” Shoving a plastic binder into his backpack. “Mom just told me to walk near somebody from school.”

There had been a sad flurry of looks between the adults that Thomas had decidedly missed but that Newt caught. Next to him, Sonya still in her bee costume and hanging off of Newt’s arm had yawned. Resting her cheek on his shoulder. “I’ll walk with you.” Newt offers, shaking Sonya off because something in him hurt a tiny bit every time she acted like a needy little sister.

They trailed along behind the towering form of Alex and the tiny trotting legs of Sonya. Newt watching the bee wings flap and bounce on her back and making it look like her shadow on the pavement was flying. 

“Thanks.” 

Newt turned. Thomas was looking at him, smile tugging up the side of his mouth and a scrape on his chin. A glow was spreading in Newt’s chest.

It felt good, knowing that the people he cared about felt happy and safe. Like Newt had helped. Like Newt wasn’t just a reminder. He decided he would chase this feeling. 

Thomas reached out, taking his hand with a smile. “Wanna race to the next light post and back?”

The fingers tangling with Newt’s felt warm. “Okay.”

Newt had won. He was the fastest, no one could ever catch him.

(For a brief period during high school he dreams of becoming the next Miyoko, until a kid from another borough absolutely destroys him at a track meet. Newt was fast, but it seemed like the only time he could really move was when something was chasing him.)

They watched every OZ _ever_ because of Teresa, and Minho’s birthday party that year was zombie themed. One summer Newt gets it in his head that he wants to skateboard, abandoning his bike to skid and slide and fall down the street until he gives up after three weeks, whipping the second-hand board that he'd mowed laws to be able to afford away from him with a shriek of frustration. The next day while they walked to the playground Sonya flew past them on the board as if she’d been put on this earth to do nothing else, long blonde pigtails whipping out behind her and giggling like a lunatic.

He’d sighed, because, of course.

The only thing that Newt remembers being extraordinary during his first year of Junior High was that Vince had been arrested. He watches Dan’s heart break and for just a second is grateful that he’d never have to feel like that. He watches his Mom’s heart break as well, seeing her big brother get locked up.

(He had looked at Sonya and made a very quiet ironclad promise to himself to never, _ever,_ put her through this.)

Newt tiptoed through most of that month, learning how to walk plastered to the wall and becoming a near constant fixture at Alby’s. He didn’t talk much, but when he did it was sarcastic and sharp. Minho and Teresa and Thomas crowding around him like guard dogs, the three of them snarling when anyone came too close.

And then the next year when Alby and Ximena’s parents had died suddenly in a car crash, himself and Dan and Gally and Fry and Ben had done the same.

Newt started to redefine his ideas about family.

-

It took all of three days to get into shit when he started high school. But, honestly, what did the faculty expect? Leaving the dolly cart out in the open and just _asking_ to be ridden down the sloping courtyard. And it wasn’t even his fault. It was Dan and Gal and maybe a tiny bit Fry, and if Newt happened to be in the vicinity of the crash zone, then, well.

A lot of his teachers didn’t need much of a reason to suspect him. And it didn’t help that he got _major_ flex with his classmates simply because he was tight with a group of tough seniors. The only people in his grade that didn’t treat him any different when they found out his name were his three best friends. His three only friends, really. 

Heavy wears the crown, and all that. 

“It’s because you’re such a big deal.” Minho had said with a serious nod of his head a few weeks into their freshman year. Newt snorted, the sound echoing in the run-down school gymnasium. He wasn’t entirely sure he enjoyed the attention that his family brought him. But Newt kept this to himself. 

“No. Really, Newt. I’m honored. That we’re still friends and all. Just being a lowly commoner in the face of borough royalty.” Minho added with a flourishing bow. 

In each of his hands were canned goods, and Newt snatched them from him, shoving them in the relief organization’s bin. “Quite the kingdom I’ve got here.” 

Minho had volun-told the three of them that they’d all be packaging and sorting food being sent further south to climate refugees. They happily put aside their teenage ‘I-don’t-care-ness’ for a Saturday to dive into sorting the messy donations managed to be scraped up. 

Newt held up a can, nose wrinkling in disgust. “Jesus.” 

Minho shrugged with a sigh, grabbing more nonperishables and packing them away. “I know dude. But it’s all people could ge, and this shipment was supposed to focus on medical supplies anyways.” 

“Did they get the medical supplies at least?” 

Minho sighed again, shoulders slumping. “The budget’s frozen with that whole thing in Congress.” 

“Shit.” 

“Yeah.” 

Across the gym Thomas let out a single loud laugh, Teresa grinning wicked at him, surrounded by their own stack of boxes. Too far away to hear anything specific over the general din of bodies in the large room. “You think they’re...” Minho trailed off with a gesture in their friend’s direction. 

Newt had been wondering that himself lately, with strange intensity. He shrugged, crouching down and starting to rifle through the donations again. “Dunno really. They’ve always been close.” 

Minho nodded. “Valid. I get asked all the time if we’re dating.” 

Newt looked up with slightly raised eyebrows. “Really?” 

“Yeah. I’m always super insulted that they’d think I’d settle for you.” 

Newt laughed around the squeak of sneaker rubber against linoleum. “The sheer nerve.” 

“Yeah man. You’re a borough celebrity and all, but I’m _stunning_. I could bag at least the JV football captain. He’s important _and_ good-looking.” 

Another can passed between them and was put into the bin. “He _is_ pretty cute.” Newt acknowledges.

“That’s what I’m saying.” 

He also, around this time, realized that there was a good chance him and Minho had a fifty/ fifty of being in competition for a romantic partner. They acknowledge this, and everything that went along with it silently, the way best friends do sometimes. It was all well and good for other people to guess who Newt was dating, but he's seen enough of the world to know that there were asterisks and expectations tacked onto him that he didn't want to look into to deeply.

He had some lurking suspicions that, JV football captain or not, that kind of thing _would not fly_ on his block. Maybe it would, he wouldn't know. He'd never seen it. But, Newt didn't think so, and he wasn't exactly going to risk it, so he keeps this to himself. Leave the trailblazing to someone that had less to lose.

And then, when in tenth grade Minho had walked in on him and another guy from their science class kissing in the broom closet, the only thing Minho had to say about the pathetically cliché scenario that Newt suddenly found himself in was “Alright.” (His knees had gone weak with relief.)

Thomas and Teresa stayed an unspoken question mark in Newt’s head. When they tangled their fingers together for a half second one day to stop from being separated on a crowded sidewalk in a decidedly _intimate_ fashion right in front of Minho and him, Newt had missed a step. Slipping off the curb and stumbling and then righting himself quickly. Minho had cut him a quick look and a shrug, and that was it.

Newt tells himself that the strange jolt in his stomach is because he’s worried that if they were to break up it might affect their friend group. But nothing seemed to change with the new development, aside from the very rare hand holding similar to the above-mentioned scenario, and the odd tightness in his chest started to lessen. Thomas and Teresa, they’d always been close. Besides, what does he care if they are or they aren’t? None of his business, anyways. Newt keeps this whole strange episode to himself as well. 

They grow up a little more, and Newt doesn’t exactly grow inwards as strengthen the defenses. Dan had gone off the rails when Vince was put away, and this if anything solidified the fact that close relationships with his blood was highly unlikely. Newt had already put a wall up between his mother and him, never fully acknowledged, but fully felt. Newt loved her deeply, but at a bit of an arm’s length, she respected the distance even if it _visibly_ hurt her. No matter how hard he tried, his sister wouldn’t allow him the same courtesy. 

When he’d complained about it to Alby one day while he sat on an office chair in Alby and Ximena's garage, the man had let out a snort and rolled himself out from under the car he’d been working on. “You big siblings have no idea. I think there was a time where I genuinely thought that Ximena put the sun in the sky. Pass me that wrench?” Newt had obliged, and once Alby was safely back under the car his voice drifted back to Newt. “It’s nice that Sonya wants you two to be close. And she’s a good kid. And…family, it’s important. They look out for each other.”

(When their parents had died Ximena had followed him around like a shadow for months, despite the fact that Alby was almost twenty and had a job and practically ran a business and was an _adult_.)

Newt rolled back and forth on the wheelie chair, frowning and spinning in a full circle. Clearing his throat. “Yeah I guess.” The grinds and whines of metal and machine being cut and mended fill the silence.

And then gently offered from under the car. “She’s still your sister Newt.” 

Newt planted his beat-up converse on the ground sharply. “I know.” 

“I know that you know.” 

“Well then I guess we’ve all figured out that we know.” Newt snaps, maybe a little sharp and sarcastic and brittle (and guilty). He made a promise to himself to do better. That night when he walked past Sonya’s room he tapped his knuckles against the open door to get her attention. 

“What’s up?” Sonya asked from her spot lounging on her bed and doing her homework, face confused and curious and maybe just a tiny bit hopeful. Newt coming to her room of his own volition was a unique event.

Newt cleared his throat. “This is impressive.” He offered, gesturing to the explosive mess that seemed to contain no less than two department stores worth of clothes, various jewelry hanging from any available hook and a rather startling collection of skateboard wheels. “I was gonna go for some pizza, do you wann-is that my red hoodie?” 

Sonya raised her eyebrows innocently. “Nope.” 

“Yes it is.” 

“I need it for my grunge looks.” 

“I need it because it’s _mine_.” He snapped, striding bravely into the mess and doing his best not to step on her clothes. An incredible feat in and of itself, reminding Newt of those ancient arcade games about frogs and lily pads he’d seen on a school trip to a museum. He snatched the shirt off the top of a mid-range pile and stormed back out under Sonya’s large sulky eyed stare. He ignored her and silently kicked himself, because if this was him trying to put the sun in the sky for his little sister the whole planet was a lot less fucked then they though.

Newt sat in his almost empty room on his unmade-but-somehow-still-neat bed behind his softly closed door. Looked at the sweatshirt bunched up in his fists before gazing over to the picture taped to the wall.

Two small children grinning up at the camera. Both of their hair was still almost white, only darkening to gold-blonde as they got older. They’d taken after their mom, both of them, and in some ways Newt wished they hadn’t. Much easier to acknowledge the differences between them if there was visual proof. 

Fifteen minutes later the shirt was lobbed back into Sonya’s room without a word. “Thank you!” She called cheerfully to the lightning fast figure retreating down the hall. 

-

When they’d gotten arrested, when _he’d_ gotten them all arrested trying to steal that car, Alby and Dan had picked him up from the police station. And Newt knew, without a shadow of a doubt why that kid’s parents weren’t pressing charges. (His friends didn't realize, assuming it was luck. And maybe it was, but it probably had a fair bit to do with the fact that the kids parents wouldn’t, you know, wanna piss _Newt’s_ connections off. The thought made him sick.)

On the car ride home Alby sat silent and gripping the wheels tightly and Dan laughing and joking, which only seemed to make Alby’s shoulders tenser. Until Dan says something that Alby can't _help_ but laugh at, and he does. Shaking his head and voice warm and deep with affection when he tells Dan, in no uncertain terms, what a pain in the ass he was.

Dan grinned like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. "You know you love me."

Both of them pointedly ignoring Newt frozen in the backseat, chewing his nails and counting the streetlights as they drove, mind empty. Newt had walked into his house and the look of disappointment his mother gave him turned him _bitterly_ cold.

 _‘Like father like son._ ’ He’d managed (barely) not to sneer.

Instead he goes into his room and slides down against the softly closed door, arms wrapping around himself and presses his head to his bent knees.

-

Newt started to feel the walls closing in on him roughly halfway through the summer before grade ten. It happened about five seconds after Dan had stood up, rubbing his jaw and laughing and telling Gal that ‘he better remember the one time he’d ever get away with that.’ Nearby Ximena had rolled her eyes, crossed her arms, and very loudly muttered about ‘toxic masculinity bullshit.’ He’d silently agreed with her.

Newt was the youngest in the backyard by at least three years, and while a part of him felt cool and important and _adult_ to be at the party with the late teens and young adults, another part of him felt like looking over his shoulder. He slunk to the fringes, hopping up on the backyard wall and trying to make himself look uninviting. Doesn’t seem to work.

“Gonna be you one day.” Dan said with a grin, sliding up beside Newt and handing him a beer with a smile that _almost_ feels threatening. Newt notices Alby from across the backyard focus on the bottle in his hand, opening his mouth and then, thinking better of it, closing it again with a shrug. Music pumps from the speakers and people fight playfully over the empanadas Fry had made.

“I’ve been informed.” Newt picked at the bottle label, wondering what the guild lines were on party etiquette for block-crew initiation. Was it like New Years? Could he not leave until twelve? Was it the two-hour rule? As soon as someone else left?

“Hey.” Dan jostled him playfully. “Don’t look so sulky.” He turned serious, a very unlike Dan shift in emotions. “All of us in it together. That’s what our dads always wanted.” He gestured to both of them and then Alby. “It’s up to us to keep this thing going. For them. To keep up what they started.”

Newt bites down on the ‘ _I never even met him, and none of this matters_.’ sizzling behind his teeth. “Yeah.”

Dan claps him on the back and the force of it sends Newt off the wall. He barely (but, admittedly, impressively) manages to turn it into a legitimate jump down. Dan laughs and Newt wonders absently how he could both idolize and kind of fucking hate someone at the same time. “Come on,” Dan nudges him towards the group. “Don’t mope in the corner. This is family shit.” A hand at Newt’s shoulder and leading him into the circle, and Newt wonders if the firmness of the grip is deliberate.

Newt stayed, but only until the first person left. And then he slipped out of the backyard and padded down the dark street.

“Hey.” Thomas said with a frown as he opened the door on the warm summer night. T-shirt and boxers, clearly just lounging before bed. “What’s up? You okay?”

Newt shrugged. “Your mom home?”

Thomas rolled his eyes and let out a bitter laugh, opening the door further. Answer enough. Newt followed him through his dark empty house, and noticed, once again, that even though all the homes on their block weren’t exactly _palaces_ , Thomas’s house was the only one that genuinely screamed out neglect from every surface and corner. Once they were safely behind his bedroom door (and this room, even with all of its organized wire-and-parts chaos was noticeably cleaner.) Thomas sat at his small desk, shoving aside whatever convoluted screen-and-chip Frankenstein he’d been messing with and looked at Newt, who had draped himself dramatically over his bed.

“So…” Thomas asks lightly. “Dan’s thing good?”

Newt shrugged and buried his head in Thomas’s pillow, inhaling deeply. And then, when a rush of endorphins hit, questions his actions in a strangely detached fashion. “Nah.”

-

A few months into classes starting up for grade ten they spent an afternoon on Minho’s front porch steps, eating cereal straight out of the box and watching their neighborhood parade by on the sidewalk.

They waved when Minho’s dad called to them on his way to his bowling league, reminding Minho to take out the trash. (Newt wondered just how long it had taken Minho to convince his parents to let Newt come over again. What he had said, how he had spun it. Minho had always been able to get people to see his point of things. Maybe his grandmother had stuck up for him too, she'd always liked him.)

They shouted to other groups of kids from school that were tumbling through their own sunny afternoons, playful back and forth words across the fence. At one point Teresa yawned. Sonya and Harriet and Beth flew past them on bikes and boards, Harriet sticking out her tongue at them. Minho stretched out his legs and Newt stretches his on top of them with a satisfied sigh. There’s a thumb war or two. The hotly debated topic on who was a bigger idiot, Thomas or Newt, was touched upon.

(Thomas was in the lead these days, mostly due to a rather unfortunate ice cone mishap.)

And then-

Around a bite of cereal Thomas offers in an oddly casual tone “I don’t think my mom’s coming back.”

Inky shadows creep across the pavement and grass. They sit and watch the street lights come on, crowds of moths flocking to the yellow glow, no one quite knowing what to say.

After, Newt barged through his front door past Alex and Sonya on the couch in long quick strides to his mother standing by the table. Before her face could even start to register the dumbstruck look, Newt was hugging her, arms wrapping around and eyes squeezed shut tightly. 

For a moment she freezes in shock.

And then her hands come up belatedly. “Isaac what...” when he shakes his head, letting his shoulders slump, her arms pull tighter. First hesitantly as if he might break, and then with almost crushing force.

“Mom.” Newt wavers out. Her hand moves up to comb through his hair like she used too when he was young and the action instantly makes his eyes smart. Newt felt her shoot a confused look over his shoulder at Alex and Sonya. His shoulders slumped further. He hadn’t quite noticed when he’d gotten taller than his mom, but he was. Significantly.

Her fingers moved through his hair and Newt focuses on nothing else. “I’m here. I’m right here.” She murmured soothingly. A cricket was chirping outside the open window. 

He took a deep shuddering breath, eyes squeezing tighter. “I know.” 

They don’t talk about it, but that night Alex places a small jar of newly bought relish on the table when they’re eating the burgers he had made for dinner. Their eyes meet and Alex shrugs with a hesitant hopeful smile.

Newt starts to redefine his re-definitions on family.

-

“Is he okay?” Minho asked Teresa a few days after Thomas had moved in with her and her mom. She shrugged, absentmindedly picking at a chip in the paint of her bike while they waited for Thomas one afternoon at the school’s bike rack. The rush and ebb of a recently released school population flows around them.

“I dunno honestly. He seems alright…but that’s almost worse you know? My mom’s heartbroken over the whole thing, you know how much my mom loves him. She keeps waiting for him to break down or something.” She twirled a curl around her finger, moving to pop it in her mouth and thinking better of it with a frown. She’d been trying to break the habit for weeks now. “Honestly I just don’t really know how to tell her that Tom might be so okay with it because she’s never really _been_ there to start? Like, alright, she was there, but she wasn’t _really_ there, you know?”

Newt spotted Thomas moving towards them in the flow of the after-school crowd, able to pick him out in a remarkably short time, even at the distance. They lock eyes and Thomas’s face breaks into a weak grin. Newt’s throat felt tight. “Yeah, I know.”

“The problem is, we gotta get to his mom’s signature on the school data base.” Teresa says, also noticing Thomas across the courtyard.

“Can we just fake it?” Minho asks, brow furrowed. 

She shook her head. “Her signature? Nah. I dunno how but we have to get around it. They auto check all of our parent’s signatures for enrolment forms and I.D updates and legal stuff. Goes right into a scanned database that identifies it. We can’t fake it, and if we try it’ll probably get flagged and they’ll notice. And if they notice they’ll ask questions, and then...”

“Shit. Valid.” Newt says, fear rising steadily. If Thomas was found out he’d end up in the system. In foster care. You never, fucking _ever_ , wanted to go into foster care. 

Teresa noticed the curl that had made its way into her mouth somehow, frowning and spitting it out. “Yeah.” 

Newt looked over at Thomas’s inching closer figure with thoughtful eyes. “Do you think if Thomas could hack into the school database, he could he change the signature to someone else’s? Replace it with one of our own?” 

Thomas could. 

They set the plan in motion at Alby’s after school. “Does this make you my mom now?” Thomas jokes weakly. The three of them freeze. Teresa bites her lip. Minho looks up from the sheets of scrap paper they’d be using, practice attempts littering Alby’s kitchen table.

Thomas sat next to Newt. Almost slumping against him, really. Bags under his eyes, wobble to his smile, droop to his shoulders. Newt resisted the surprisingly powerful impulse to hug him. 

“Yeah. Yeah it does.” Minho says back across the table with a smile and, okay, it’s a bit weak too. But it’s also warm, and he signs the new signature with a flourish. “You bet your ass I’m your mom now.” 

Thomas avoided the gavel slam of being dragged into the system by the skin of his teeth, barely sliding under the radar. Minho throws his arm protectively across Thomas’s shoulders a bit more, Teresa’s huge eyes search his face closely, Newt was suddenly super-glued to his side.

The first time Minho and Newt had gone to a protest (either about air travel emissions or deforestation of the last national park, Newt couldn’t remember) the two of them had gotten themselves so hyped up over the idea of getting arrested that they were almost disappointed when they weren’t. Newt was, actually, a little disappointed if he was being honest with himself. It’d be nice to be on the wrong side of the law for the right reasons. His family could chalk it up to a little teenage rebellion.

Thomas hacked into the school computer system and put “Teresa, prom?” on every screen in the building. The whole thing a prank that had Minho doubled over, Teresa screaming and chasing Thomas through the courtyard, Thomas laughing and dodging and tripping-“ _Shitfuck_.” 

And even as he laughs something in Newt twinges, just for a second, at the thought of Thomas slow dancing under bad lighting and paper streamers in the school gym.

And then the summer before grade eleven he figures it out.

They had been running, a constant game of tag that the two of them had never quite finished, not since that first time under the street lights on their way back from the spring recital all those years ago. After a huge winding chase that took them laughing and scrambling under massive swaying oaks, along brick walls with their arms thrown out for balance, ducking under swings at the playground and jumping over concrete barriers, Newt was just a step ahead. _Run run run run_ pounding through the grey storm cloud that had recently taken residence up in his head.

All he wanted to do these days was run.

Thomas lunged with a shout of victory and they were tangling and falling on what Newt realized belatedly was the sidewalk in front of Teresa’s house.

He had led them right back to where they started.

There was an ironic poetic justice to this that Newt refuses to acknowledge.

The two of them a laughing pile of limbs and Newt pushes himself up on his hands and knees to hover over Thomas. Looking down at that mega-watt smile and windswept messy hair and those freckles that Newt could tell the seasons from. A rush of warmth shoots up his stomach and into his chest and something in his head clicks.

Oh.

(In summer Thomas was covered in the tiny brown dots, practically a tan. Fall freckles were weaker but still there. For winter, they faded to a light dusting and in spring they always started to creep across his face from the bridge of his nose outward.)

Spilling from Teresa’s open living room window was ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. The one by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. Ukulele and gentle humming floating on the warm summer breeze. Of all of the covers that Teresa played on loop through their lives, it was always Newt’s favorite version.

 _Oh_.

Thomas looked up at him, brow furrowed and grin slipping while Newt deals internally with the potentially catastrophic realization that he had feelings for one of his best friends. “What?” The source of his internal potential catastrophe says and Newt drags himself back down to this plane of existence with some difficulty.

“I’m just shocked.” Newt says, whipping his brow metaphorically when his voice is level.

“Shocked?” Thomas asks, big toothy grin returning and causing more potential catastrophes.

“Mhm.” Newt says, still not moving to get up and gesturing to how Thomas was willingly staying pinned. “Just, shocked, you know. That you would give up the fight so easily. Where’s that plucky attitude? I’m disappointed in you Thomas.” Newt’s own personal catastrophe had laughed, shoving Newt back and scrambling to his feet.

“I’ll show you a plucky attitude.”

Newt wondered afterwards if he’d said what he’d said to Thomas just to make the other boy move. A lot of what Newt did from there on out was some variation of moving close to Thomas because he just _couldn’t seem to stop himself_ , only to turn around and force one of them to take a step back.

-

It takes a few days, he walks a little off kilter, but soon he manages to convince himself that it’s a crush, a result of long bright days and sunsets and boredom. Newt makes it through the rest of the summer with that mantra pounding through his head, stubbornly _not_ getting lost in warm brown eyes and reaching out to see if messy chocolate waves were as soft as they looked.

If he sits bolt upright in bed one night, pushing sweaty hair off his cheek and staring wide eyed into the darkness, his dream echoing in his head and mouth bone dry, he tells himself that it’s nothing, that it’s fine, not to read into it. 

( _Newt.’ Whispered against his skin, warm brown eyes hazy and lips heavy._ )

It’s a special kind of pain, existing close to someone like Thomas. Brave and courageous and always diving into things headfirst, single minded, _gotta have the answers gotta figure this out gotta solve the puzzle_ energy that he had lost for a while after his mom had disappeared finally returning. He gets into more fights than he should, starts to roll more and more with Newt’s other group, becoming even more of a fixture at Alby’s. Minho and Teresa being drawn in as well, but not to the same extent.

“It’s cool, the way you all look out for each other, is all.” Thomas offers one day as they walk down the sidewalk. “Like a family.” There's a hint of longing in his tone, and Newt’s heart drops to his stomach.

“Gally is a huge mother hen, more trouble than it’s worth.” Newt jokes, hoping to put a slamming end to that train of thought. The grey haze in his head thickening.

With contemplative eyes Thomas traces their block, gaze resting on Alby’s front porch where a small crowd of their friends had already gathered. “Hmm.” Thomas says, gears turning visibly. The problem with being single-minded, was that once Thomas got a goal in his head he’d never quit. Newt was fairly sure that was the day Thomas decided he wanted to be a part of _it_.

-

When school starts it’s both a blessing and a curse, because they’re not spending _every minute_ together like the summer, _but_ they’re not spending every minute together.

-

“Newt!” Thomas shouts on the old dirt field during gym class, jumping and crashing into him, cheek flush against his and Newt’s hands curl into fists. Wondering suddenly what it would feel like to nuzzle his nose into the hollow between that slim muscular neck and sharp jaw bone. Let his lips brush sensitive skin.

Feel Thomas shiver.

-

“ _Newt_ I _did something and we gotta go_.” Thomas’s hand wrapping around his wrist and dragging him at a sprint down the hallway just as a teacher screeched from inside the geography classroom about _who was responsible for_ _every link in the syllabus leading exclusively to ‘Africa’ by Toto_.

“And people say classical music is boring.” Newt had gasped out as they leant against a set of lockers two floors away.

-

A elbow jabbing lightly into his side. Gally bobbing his chin questioningly at him with a frown as Newt sat on the hood of Dan's car. They'd driven out to a different part of the borough, practically the opposite end. Dan and Fry and Ben disappearing in a chop shop with a trunk full of parts that Newt doesn't question. "You good?" Gally asked, and Newt nodded. Looking down at the small doodle of a robot that Thomas had drawn on his left forearm with sharpie earlier in the day.

 _Before_ Dan's car had rolled to a stop in front of Newt on the sidewalk, everyone in the vehicle calling playfully and looking at him expectantly. He had shrugged at Thomas and Minho and Teresa and muttered about meeting up with them later, climbing in the backseat. 

He placed his right hand on top of the pen tattoo, covering it, tucking it out of sight and turning to Gally. "Yeah. Yeah I'm good." The storm clouds in his head rumble distantly.

 _Run run run run trapped trapped trapped trapped_.

-

They notice somethings tilted with him, but they don't push. Teresa weaves gentle fingers through his hair and mentions that he should let it grow a bit, if he wants, it'd look nice. Minho's fridge inexplicably begins to be stocked with apple juice. 

On a day when Newt is feeling particularly trapped and hopeless and the grey cloud in his head is _thundering_ Thomas looks at him thoughtfully for a second. “We should take MLK boulevard, Newt’s favorite house to look at is on that street.” Thomas offers to their group, spinning to smile warmly up at him, making Newt’s heart thump in his chest and his foot miss a step while they walk down the sidewalk towards home.

They let him know that they're _there_. And that helps a surprising amount.

-

“Newt? How do you do that cool trick shot? The one that Dan taught you? Where you make the ball leap-frog.” Thomas asked over the click of pool cues and imitation ivory pool balls rattling into corner pockets.

“Huh?” Newt starts, pulling himself down from the space that he’d been floating it. Drawn back into the restaurant sized pool hall filled with kids from their school leaning over felt tables, the smell of popcorn from the concession stand drifting over to them.

Next to him Sonya snaps her finger close to his ear once. “Earth to big brother.”

He scowls and she smiles brightly at him, massive band aid wrapped fully around her elbow three layers thick from the road rash she’d gotten skating last week. “I think Minho needs help carrying the pops over.” He’d snapped at her. She looked over at Minho, happily chatting away to the girl behind the counter. Directly behind the girl was Harriet in her concession stand uniform, rolling her eyes and making puking motions.

“Yeah, I don’t think he does.”

Newt grit his teeth. “Maybe you should go check.”

She blew a raspberry at him. “Fine. But I’m eating your fries.”

Thomas shook his head as Sonya flounced away. “Highway robbery dude. You should’ve haggled.” Stepping back to the pool table. “So, how’d you do it?”

“Do what?” Newt blinked at him and Thomas’s eyebrows rose, wiggling the pool cue.

“The trick shot?”

“Oh! Oh.” He stepped forward, hands hovering uselessly a good half-arm’s length away from Thomas. “You just, uh.” Thomas turned back to the table and Newt cleared his throat. “You just.” Newt’s hands came up of their own volition, guiding Thomas’s shoulder back, his elbow down, fingers tracing lightly against the curve of his spine to correct his posture. Standing close. _Too close_ his mind screams at him. “And then you, just, you know, hit it.” He finished, clearing his throat again. Thomas’s tongue sticking out the side of his mouth in concentration, and he smacked the ball, making it jump over the one directly in front of it.

Thomas turned, beaming up at him. “Thanks Newt.” _So close_.

Newt cleared his throat for a third time. “No problem.” He says. Chokes, really. Wondering what it would be like to step forward, place his hands on either side of Thomas on the felt table and lean down. 

Thomas frowned. “Are you getting sick?”

Newt snapped back to reality like a rubber band, resisting the urge to clear his throat again. “Nope. I’m fine.”

-

“Newt come _on_!” Thomas shouted, lunging and diving and Newt danced out of his way lightning quick, because even though Thomas was fast Newt was the _fastest_. Only when he was being chased though.

The grind of the skate park is a dull constant background hum and nearby Minho and Teresa are engaging in a _spirited_ debate with Harriet and Sonya and Beth over who was, in fact, the bigger idiot. A few other kids from their school were there, and also glad to participate.

(Newt was currently in the lead, due to a recent prank involving water balloons.)

With a flourish Newt jumped on Sonya’s board, waving the stolen precious baseball cap as he wobbled and weaved his way in circles around Thomas, laughing and feeling the sun on his face and lighter than he had in weeks. If it’d been anyone else, _anyone_ besides the two of them, it might’ve looked a little bit like flirting.

But it was them, so.

Nearby Sonya groaned. “My bearing can’t take the weight of Newt’s fucking attitude.” Teresa patted her shoulder sympathetically.

Harriet snorted. “Even Atlas’s anti-grav engines would fail under _that_ task.” 

Newt winks over his shoulder, kicking the board back to his sister and taking off away from the others, tossing the stolen hat into Minho’s hands, Thomas in hot pursuit. Because it wasn’t about a game of keep away, not anymore. Now they were _running_.

Weaving and sprinting along the paths that they’d grown up on, Newt lunging down a side-street, the two of them hopping the occasional fence and ducking under laundry lines and along back walkways and Newt’s blood was pumping in his ears, Thomas was right behind him, his legs were a blur on the ground, Thomas was laughing, the bright noise cutting through Newt like a sunbeam, _run run run_ _run_ still pounding through his head.

And he knew, intrinsically, that Thomas would chase him. Maybe that’s why Newt had fallen for him in the first place. Maybe that’s why he’d fought it for so long. Maybe Thomas would always chase him because Thomas _always_ chased what he wanted, offers a traitorously hopeful voice in his head.

They take a sharp turn down the alley by the convenience store, and he’d meant to keep running, meant to duck and dodge and weave away. But Newt surprises even himself when he pivots on his heels, spinning to face Thomas and wrapping his arms around the body that slammed into Newt's. 

They stumbled together, swaying, and Newt’s back hits the brick wall of the alley. “Caught ya.” Thomas panted up at him with a sweaty grin. Newt’s arms tightened of their own volition. 

Newt shook his head, words equally as light and breathless. “Actually, technically, I caught you.” A cop out, sure. But maybe Newt just didn’t want to acknowledge to himself quite yet that Thomas was the only person on the planet that Newt would willingly let catch him. The bricks dig into his back satisfyingly and Newt scratches his shoulders against the wall like a bear. 

“Doesn’t count. You broke the rules.” Thomas was still in his arms, wasn’t moving, smiling up at him, cheeks flushed and same playful mega-watt grin. All freckles and messy waves. 

His eyes. 

And it would be so easy. 

So _easy_ for Newt to put his fingers under Thomas’s chin, to tip those freckled cheeks that he could tell the seasons from up slightly, and find out if Thomas was as earnest and genuine in kissing as he was with everything else in his life. 

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that rules were made to be broken?” Newt says instead, voice rasping. And Thomas is _still in his arms_. 

“Fortune does favor the brave.” Thomas agreed with a dramatic knowing nod. And then a lightning fast smirk and he bolted. Breaking out of the tangled mess that the two of them were, metaphorically _and_ physically. Taking off down the street and shouting “Round two!” With a laugh over his shoulder. 

For a second Newt stands completely still, watching Thomas sprint away, his arms mourning the loss. And then he went tearing off after Thomas, legs flying out under him, and Newt amends his previous statement. Maybe it wasn’t so much about Thomas catching him or him catching Thomas.

Maybe they just had to figure out if they want to stop running from each other.

-

It’s not ideal, but Newt’s got a handle on it. There are days where he tips towards something more hopeful, and then there are days where things look just a little bit more unlikely. He learns to balance between these options the way he’s balanced in-between a lot of things in his life, almost a second nature by this point.

Thomas wears blue jeans like a second skin, that fucking (adorable) baseball cap, and his heart on his sleeve.

One day when the part ways on their street, (thirteen houses and three empty lots and Newt’s daydreams between them) bright eyes and freckled cheeks shoot Newt a smile before walking off towards Teresa’s house, hands in his pockets and spine straight. Newt feels his heart leap out of his chest and float after Thomas down the sidewalk like a balloon tied to a string around his wrist.

Newt heaves a deep sigh and takes a bit of his own advice. Acknowledging another irrefutable truth, besides the fact that relish is the best condiment, the whales are gone, yawning doesn’t make other people yawn.

The irrefutable truth was this; Newt was fucked.

-

He knew the exact moment that he fully and completely fell in love. Knew it down to the second. 

His insides had been strung out and twisting and shaking, a strange jittery sensation that made him wince and grind his jaw and flex his fingers out fully and then curl into fists. The walls were inches from slamming closed, the storm cloud in his head was turning into a whirling cyclone. 

Just the day before, Ben had shown up to school with a black eye and a giant grin. “Your cuz packs a hell of a punch.” He said with a rueful laugh and a light shove to Newt’s shoulder. 

Minho and Teresa and Thomas and other kids in their grade had gathered around him with, ‘Ooohhh’ and ‘Aaaahhh’ like the broken blood vessels on Ben’s face were fireworks in the sky. Newt had grit his teeth so he wouldn’t scream. Because now Ben was in it, in it forever. And Newt felt his heart pound rapidly, felt the strange heavy expectations settle over his head like a blanket. 

It wasn’t the tradition. It wasn’t what they’d done or didn’t do. It wasn’t Alby or Ximena or Vince or anyone else. 

It was the fact that Newt had never been given the _choice_. 

He was here, so deep in his block that roots wrapped around his ankles and held him in place. He would live and die in this borough, in this tiny shitty corner of their slowly-collapsing world. And maybe, if he was lucky, see outside the walls of the mega-city once or twice in his life. _Trapped trapped trapped_ echoing through his head all day, drowning out everything else.

He can barely remember walking into class. Taking his seat at his carved-up desk (S.T loved J.D apparently.) and letting the failing public school curriculum wash over him.

“Newt.” His name whispered low and below the monotonous drone of their teacher’s voice made Newt jump and his seat clatter and squeak. When the entirety of sixty pairs of teenage eyes turn to him as one under a joint crushing stare, Newt forces himself not to blush.

“What?” He asks casually, eyebrows raised, gesturing back to the front. “Come on guys, pay attention. This’ll be on the final.”

The teacher frowned. “No it won’t.”

Newt shook his head. “Dunno if I trust him.” He tapped the side of his nose and there was a snort of laughter or two and he congratulates himself internally. Calm cool and collected image maintained. The teacher had given a long-suffering sigh that conveyed a thousand levels of exasperation and turned back to the projector.

Newt swivelled in his seat to raise his eyebrows at Thomas, who mouthed a sheepish ‘Sorry.’ Before wiggling his eyebrows and passing him a crumpled-up drawing of a bullet train with smoke pouring out of its windows and two small figures riding inside. One of them was wearing a baseball cap, the other a frown. Newt sighed around his misgivings, and Thomas’s grin grew wider. Which didn’t help his misgivings, not one bit, not at all.

Because the problem was, he couldn’t seem to stop himself when it came to Tommy. ( _Thomas_ he corrects himself firmly) Not in fleeting glances, not in half formed thoughts about lips and sighs and skin under his fingers, the scenarios shoved harshly to the back of his mind to be ignored.

Couldn’t seem to stop himself when it came to letting Thomas in. Which, alright, physical attraction and raging hormones aside, the true devil in the details was _emotional_ connection. And that needed to be avoided in this new confusing context of Thomas by all means necessary. Because. Well.

But they had sat on the hill and he had ripped up blades of grass as if somehow, he could pull his own connection out of the soil as well, and Newt spilled everything about his family that had been threatening to pull him under for weeks (months, years).

Everything confusing about him aside, Thomas was still-no-would _always_ _,_ be one of Newt’s best friends. Dirt embedding itself under his nails and stuck gritty against the pads of his fingers as he spiraled into a panic, heart thumping against his ribs.

Then Thomas had put his hand on his own and everything in Newt had frozen in place. 

“Just be you. Be _Newt_.” Thomas said and Newt watched the way his lips curved and moved around the words, the way they sounded like permission, like acceptance. Like someone saw him and just him.

And Thomas was going to stay here, too. Nowhere else to go. Nowhere else he _wanted_ to go. As guilty as it made him feel, Newt didn’t think it would be as bad, trapped his whole life here, if Thomas was part of it.

 _Oh_.

Thomas smiled, sunshine trapped in his eyes, and Newt felt it.

( _He has nice eyes_.)

He was in love. 

-

He stops daydreaming about kissing Thomas after that. Hurt too much.

-

He also decides that he needs to stop this whole fucking thing in its tracks.

(Newt refuses to admit that he was terrified.)

-

And then Thomas started to hate him.

And Newt was _poisonously_ bitter because didn’t Thomas understand _just how fucking hard he was trying_?

And maybe Newt’s heart broke a bit. And maybe he started hating Thomas just a bit as well.

Then they kept hating each other, and his heart broke a bit more, which made the hating easier. Which, you guessed it, broke his heart the rest of the way. He’d never expected for it to physically hurt. But the steadily growing throb in his chest was just as bad as everyone had spoken/written/sung about. 

One day he watches Thomas’s mouth turn down and his eyes flash angrily, Newt bristling in response as Minho and Teresa melted inconspicuously into the background, thoroughly fed up with them. The throb almost takes his breath away and Newt sees _red_. Not quite sure who he was more furious with, himself or Thomas.

The Tin Man didn’t know how good he had it, not having a heart and all.

And then, on his roof, Thomas kissed him. 

The first and only concrete thought that flirted through Newt’s head before his entire being devolved into fizzling-pop-rock-candy-happiness was, ‘ _I can't believe I've been missing out on this_.’ 

-

Newt tells himself not to lose it. His cool, his head, etc. Either/Or. Snarls it to himself in the mirror of his bathroom, actually. Glaring with conviction and shoving his stupid fucking hair out of his eyes because he was, actually, kinda losing it at bit.

And maybe each new thing that he found out about Thomas made him lose it a little bit more.

How Thomas’s hands would curl around his neck, fingernails scratching and twisting in his hair, when Newt would move their mouths together. The way he inhaled, sharp and caught, when Newt would grab his hips and pull them against his own. The flash in his eyes ( _He has nice eyes_ _._ ) just before he’d shove Newt back against the wall, both hands pressed flat on his chest.

Newt’d never start it, never initiate it, not _ever_. Not since he’d followed Thomas back to Teresa’s house and kissed him. His legs had sprinted over, he'd never moved so fast before, but nothing was chasing him. He was running _towards_ something, and it felt too good to not be right.

This was, in a lot of ways, Thomas’s show. Whatever Thomas felt for him wasn’t exactly on Newt’s level, and if Newt knew _one thing_ about Thomas it was that he spooked easily when it came to intimacy. (Which, alright, was fair.)

Newt didn’t mind playing the long-game.

Thomas’s hand brushes his while they walk down the street. Thomas looking over his shoulder to throw him a grin. Thomas gasping into his mouth in his bedroom, hands frantic and everywhere. When he caught Thomas staring at him hungrily while they lounged in Minho’s backyard or on Alby’s porch or the park, _maybe maybe maybe maybe_ replacing the _run run run run_ in Newt’s head.

He was losing it, just a bit.

The first time that Newt made him fall apart, hovering over him and kissing Thomas into the mattress, all their clothes on and only Thomas’s pants unbuttoned and Newt’s hand moving slowly, the two of them still skittish and maybe a bit nervous and figuring it out. Figuring each other out. “Newt.” His name falling out of Thomas’s mouth on a hitched breath sounds like fucking _music_ , Thomas’s hips rising off the bed and hands clenching the sheet for dear life, head rolling left to right against the pillow. When he watches Thomas’s eyes slam closed, already flushed cheeks go even deeper pink and making his freckles stand out, a single intake of breath, Newt loses it a bit. Because Thomas really is kinda beautiful.

When those eyes open slowly, out of focus and still riding the last aftershock, Newt leans down to kiss him, just to see. Feeling Thomas sigh into it, lips moving lazy and content against his own, hands letting go of the sheets to wrap around him. Newt loses it a bit more, because for just a second in the glowing mist they’d fallen into, he lets himself think, hopefully, that Thomas was kissing him like he felt the same. 

_Maybe maybe maybe_.

-

And then Thomas tells him.

Newt stares at him, mouth falling open slightly, letting Thomas’s words wash over him in the old garage. Thomas speaking without looking at him, concentrating on the spray paint he was coating on the wall. “-Paige starts spouting all this crap about how if I pass the summer program I’m accepted to the school. I can move there and live in the dorms and ‘Use the right tools’ or what-the-fuck-ever. Anyways-get this-”

Thomas pauses to shake the can and speaks over the fizzle of paint spraying. “I got _in_ Newt. I passed the entrance exam for the summer program. How fucking funny is that? I _wish_ I could see those rich fucks faces when I turn em down. I gotta think of something good. I was considering smoke bomb, but I’m open to suggestions.”

Newt’s lungs are deflating. And then not expanding. Thomas could get out.

But Newt had fucked it up. Had been too harsh in his frantic relief, and then rising horror, as Thomas _absolutely_ refused to consider it. To consider what was basically a gift from above, the chance to be more, to be _anything_. And Thomas could be anything, especially with what was being put in front of him. Thomas had no money, no parents, no options. This was his only chance. And it was a _good_ chance.

They'd find a way to make it work, to get him across the checkpoint without anyone figuring out that Thomas was parentless. They'd done it before, they'd do it again. Newt would go and fry every server in the city to erase the evidence if he had too. And then then Thomas would be there, and Newt would be here. But Thomas would be _out_. Thomas didn't exactly see it that way.

They’d fought, and then Thomas had kissed him, Newt tasting desperation on his tongue.

Newt shouldn’t have done what he’d done. It only made things worse. But the way Thomas looked at him, flushed and glassy eyed _(He has nice_ eyes) and asked him breathless "I want-do you…do you want too?"

And Newt swallowed, with difficulty. "I do. Yeah." The words tasting like sawdust but his heart growing so large it might make his ribs crack and break.

Because Thomas was leaving, Newt would make sure of it. And from the way it felt like a knife was slipping under his ribs, Newt had apparently started to hope in an indistinct fashion that him and Thomas could’ve eventually, maybe, potentially, kinda _been_ something. Maybe something _big_.

But now Thomas was leaving to start a new life and Newt’s heart was, from the feel of it, definitely breaking. So Newt and Thomas had done what they wanted to do.

People always said you never forget your first after all, and even as they moved together Newt hoped, absently, that what people said was true.

Maybe Tommy would remember him.

-

Every time. Every time he tells himself to end it, to push Thomas gently away from him and mutter ‘Listen-Tommy.’ But he doesn’t.

-

Under the glowing strings of light at Alby’s he watches Teresa and Thomas make their way over to the small group of them tucked in the backyard, first big party of the summer in full swing around them, everything cast in yellow and shadows. The beer he’d raised to his lips stills, and as their eyes meet Newt’s chest throbs painfully.

 _I love you. I love you. I love you_ _._

-

The block without Thomas is empty. Or, maybe, Newt amends, it’s just his heart that’s a big echo-y aching mess.

“Get used to it.” He snarls out loud to himself in his bathroom mirror, the two of them good friends by now (or maybe mortal enemies). Because this was, after all, just a preview of what the future held. Soon Thomas wouldn’t just be disappearing for the day, from dawn to dusk. Soon he would just be _gone_. And maybe Newt kind of selfishly wants Thomas to tell Minho and Teresa just so that they could share in his heartbreak.

At least they were feeling the absence just as deeply as him, even if they didn’t know the eventual finality to it. They did all the usual things that they’d always done during the summer, but with an empty space beside them. If they universally perked up the minute that an ecstatic ‘Guys!’ was shouted in their direction from a jogging smiling Thomas, washed pink in the setting sun’s light, none of the three of them pointed it out to each other. Dignity, and all that.

Kids with not much to hold onto and a lot to lose did tend to form the strongest bonds. At least that’s what Newt had come to understand.

Which, if anything, made his conviction waver slightly when it came to Thomas leaving. To Newt pushing him out, really. Only slightly though. Thomas could be anything, he could get out, and wasn’t that worth _everything_?

Teresa and Minho were going to get out as well, Newt could already see it. He didn’t know if that made this easier or harder.

“It’s just for a year, you know? And the way I figure it, if I take that year I can come back and use the experience to get an internship, like, I dunno, _somewhere_. Maybe use it for college credits.” Minho says carefully. The two of them sitting on the floor of Minho’s bedroom, smoking a joint and looking at the various pamphlets for relief organizations spread out around them in an explosion of recycled paper.

Newt picked one up, unfolding it and glancing at the picture of a young woman leaning off the edge of a boat, laying plastic collecting nets into the sea. “It’s a good idea Min. Everyone’s always saying they want experience on their job descriptions.” He absentmindedly pats Princess’s head where it lay on his knee and the giant teddy-bear of a dog gave a happy _thump_ of her tail.

“Yeah.” Minho hesitated and Newt stared resolutely down at the pamphlet, ashing the joint in a water cup, bar covered window wide open to let the smoke escape. “You know…” Minho started. “It’s not like it costs much to apply…I could…my parents could…”

Newt refolds the pamphlet, handing it back to Minho. “You’re going to do great with this Min. It sounds super data.” He says, ending that line of discussion real quick, because even if it didn’t cost much to _apply_ it cost a lot to actually _pay for the program_ and his mom and Alex just didn’t have that kind of money. Plus what they did have would go to Sonya’s college fund. Her grades were a _hell_ of a lot better than his and Newt would be as dead and cold in the ground as his father before he asked his mother to spend money on him that could potentially allow his baby sister to escape their grid-work part of the city.

Plus, if there was one thing that Newt was good at it was fixing things without people even realizing there was a problem in the first place. That skill, helpfully, extended to car mechanics and Alby constantly said that Newt had ‘a real knack’ for knowing just what to say or do to help groups of people run smoothly. He’d end up at the garage with Alby and Ximena, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Here forever. Newt swallowed convulsively around the hazy smoke.

The next day on their sidewalk Newt tossed Teresa two new cans of spray paint, and she caught them deftly in her hands, brow pulled down in playful confusion. “How’d you know I was almost out?” She asked looking down at the colors, already imagining what she’d whip and splat and skate across surfaces.

Newt shrugged. “Just figured. You’ve been doing a ton of it lately. Must’ve been running out.” She smiled up at him and something in his chest felt warm. “You’re really good at it you know. That thing you did on the side of the billboard by the skate park, the one with the elephant, people are talking about it.” He offers. And it was, truly beautiful. The sharp lines and flowing shading, the way the setting sun caught in the paint and made it glow somehow.

Teresa’s smile grew soft. “Out of the blue the other day Tom says to me, ‘T, did you know that the last individual of a species is called a Endling?’ Just mentioned it randomly, you know how he is. Made me think of elephants.” She pushes a curl out of her face. “I was gonna head over to the park today with Harriet, we’re meeting Sonya and Minho. Wanna come?” She asks while shoving the cans in her backpack.

He was supposed to be meeting up with Fry and Dan and the others but… “I’ll ask my mom if we can use the car. Drive around, maybe scope out some spots for your next great masterpiece.” He teases.

Later as their coasting down the street in the beat-up Camaro Newt reaches down and twists the dial of the radio to the news station, letting the days defeats and chaos wash over them in static bursts. “I’m glad someone misses him as much as I do.” Teresa offers, feet up on the dash. Newt’s hands grip the steering wheel tighter.

The sea was rising, the radio declares.

The water was coming for them.

Summer was different, when you were in love. And even though he tells himself not too, Newt gets a little bit lost in it.

In all of it, the warm breeze and the waving grass and the way that the whole world turned a dull rusted pink-red at sunset, tumbling through the days with Minho and Teresa and Thomas.

Newt gets lost in Thomas.

 _Thomas_.

The way the light catches in his eyes and his hair. The way that his hands reach out towards Newt, always holding tightly, as if Newt might turn to smoke at any given moment, disappearing from his side. And Newt sees it, sees the way that this is weighing Thomas down, the way it’s dragging him under.

 _I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry_ Newt doesn’t say as he doesn’t reach out to trace the ghost of a smile on Thomas’s lips. No mega-watt grin, not for weeks. _I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry_ he doesn’t say as he doesn’t gather Thomas up in his arms and make him sleep, the bags forming under his eyes growing dark and blue. _I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry_ Newt doesn’t beg as Thomas heart _visibly_ breaks every time Newt talks about his school.

“Thomas-listen. I’m sorry, but…” Newt practices in his bathroom mirror (and, yeah, they’re definitely enemies) for minutes on end, running his hands through his hair and pacing back and forth. Every time he thinks he’s gotten up the resolve, gotten up the willpower-

“Hey Newt.” Thomas says on Alby’s front porch, smiling tiredly up at him.

It isn’t just his resolve that crumbles.

-

"What the fuck is _wrong_ with you these days?" Newt snarled, holding his hand to his neck over what might very well be _evidence_ of how badly Thomas wanted to be with him (Which Newt couldn't let happen. Newt was a sinking ship, Newt was dangerous, Newt wouldn't let Thomas get caught in the crosshairs and they _couldn't do this, not here, not now._ ).

Evidence of how badly Thomas wanted to _stay_ (Which Newt wouldn't let happen either, because _Tommy had a chance, his only chance, and Tommy deserved more_ ). 

The words exploded out of his mouth before he could stop them, thrown completely off balance and terrified and, as a result, furious. Thomas slams the garage office door closed so hard it rattles on it's hinges and Newt sits there, staring at the wall and sighing angrily and pulling at his hair _hard._ Convincing himself that the sharp sting of his scalp is the reason why his vision was misting over.

-

“You guys know that Tom and I aren’t together, you know, _like that_ , right?” Teresa mentions casually.

Newt’s heart was trying to leap out his chest. Because the only reason, the literal only reason why Teresa would ever clarify her and Thomas’s relationship (or lack-there-of) would be because Thomas wanted their relationship clarified to the others. Newt had known, from the first second they’d kissed on his roof that nothing had ever happened between him and Teresa. 

But now Thomas was making sure that Newt knew, in his own chaotic dramatic messy head-first way. He couldn’t help it, watching the way that Thomas shifted and looked at him hesitantly and vulnerable and hopeful. _I love you I love you I love you_ replacing the _maybe maybe maybe_ in his head once and for all. And Newt was so _happy_ but his heart was _breaking_.

And then Thomas had fallen asleep on his shoulder, and Newt couldn’t help but look. Head tilting down to watch Thomas’s lips open the tiniest bit, chest rising and falling gently. He should stop staring. He tells himself to stop staring.

He doesn’t. 

He barely manages to look up and blink at Minho and mumble a distracted “Night Min.” And barely managed to meet Teresa’s eyes as he adds “It cool if I stay until he wakes up?” 

Teresa smiled, and if she knew she hid it well. “Sure. My mom’s shift at the hospital isn’t done until like seven a.m.” She shrugged, yawning behind her hand and stretching. “I’m just glad the kid went to god damn sleep. I was about to try tranquilizers next.” 

A small laugh escapes him and then Newt checked quickly to make sure his shifting hadn’t woken Thomas up. And then just kinda. Got caught up staring again. Teresa must have drifted away because distantly, in some tiny part of his brain, he heard a bedroom door shutting. He lets this information slip, labeling it incredibly unimportant. 

Because, well. 

Thomas’s lashes, so dark and long, fluttered against his skin, a freckled cheek warm and soft and pressing against Newt’s shoulder. The fast-paced tempo in his chest is all-consuming and breath-stealing in its strength. Maybe Thomas’s dramatics were rubbing off on him, because he was fairly sure that no one had ever loved anyone as much as he loved Thomas. His own eyes slipped closed, and gently, so gently, he lets his head fall and rest on top of Thomas’s. Just for a minute. Just to see what it was like.

Newt would happily never move again. 

-

That fucking Ferris wheel.

And it was funny, because Newt knew that the sounds in his ears should be the fair below, the dings of the games and the rattle of the rides, the chatter of people, the ocean’s crashing waves to their left. But as Thomas wraps his arms around Newt’s neck, as Newt pulls him in close, as they press together and hold breathless in the sky, the only thing that Newt can hear is gentle humming and the strings of a ukulele. Over the Rainbow on loop in his head.

-

Thomas sleeps like he’s been dropped from a tall height. On his stomach, head thrown to the side, limbs flung out and twisted and tangling in blankets and getting everywhere. Until he hadn’t, for a while. Going ramrod straight and tense and Newt would curl away from him, thinking he just needed more space to sprawl. But he didn’t, and then he stopped sleeping in Newt’s bed completely.

And Newt had tried his best to tell himself that it was fine. 

After the Ferris wheel, after what they did...after the way it was _different_ then the other times, (his chest throbs painfully, because Newt _knew what that_ _difference_ _was_ ) Thomas had fallen asleep moments after, clearly exhausted, looking like he hadn’t slept in weeks. Newt had stared burning holes into the ceiling, trying to figure out what the hell he was going to do. Maybe having a tiny meltdown. Maybe almost forgetting how to breathe. 

Because this was a mistake, this was a huge mistake and none of this would end well, would it? Because Thomas was moving across the checkpoint to a future of endless possibilities even if Newt had to shove him over the security barrier with his own fucking hands. With a heart broken and bleeding on the ground, but with hands that wouldn’t falter. 

It was better not to know. He would’ve never followed Thomas back to Teresa’s house after he’d kissed him that first time. Never wrapped his hands around Thomas’s waist, thumb rubbing along hip bone and fingers curling into the soft skin of his lower back.

Because now he knew how Thomas’s eyelids fluttered closed as he leant in. The way Thomas sighed when Newt kissed his neck. How his breath hitched when hands traced his jaw, pressing slightly. Newt knew what it felt like to make Thomas fall apart, to hear his name tumble breathy and rasping from Thomas’s perfect shaking lips and to _feel_ it.

And there was a distinct possibility that this knowledge might kill Newt. 

But if Newt knew what it felt like to wake up with Thomas, to feel him breathe heavy and even, to see those eyes in the morning, now, with everything that had happened? 

That would definitely kill him. 

Get up, Newt tells himself angrily. _Get up get up get up_. He’d slid out of bed and go sleep on the couch and make some crack about Thomas’s snoring (that excuse was playing thin these days) and that’d be it. _Getup getup getup_ _._ And then tomorrow he’d finally get his fucking head on straight and he’d end this. _Getupgetupgetup_. Because there was no fucking way that any of this would turn out as anything less than a _massive god damn disaste_ r. _Getupgetupgetu_ _-_

Thomas threw his arm sleepily across Newt’s waist, muttering and shifting and frowning, rolling over and spilling across him, head pillowed on Newt’s chest, leg tangling with his own. 

Newt’s arms moved without conscious thought, wrapping around Thomas and pulling him close, the motion as second-nature and unavoidable and necessary as breathing. Thomas hummed happily and sunk into a deeper sleep. Newt’s eyes squeeze closed. A cricket was singing outside his window. Only for a minute, he tells himself. And then one more minute. One after that. Thomas sighs, pressing closer.

One more minute.

The next morning Newt wasn’t particularly surprised to find out he was right. Especially when three minutes later Thomas had woken up as well, whispering “Hey...” In his morning voice (which caused a whole different slew of potential catastrophes inside of him). 

"Hey." _I love you_. "You gotta go?" 

Thomas looked at him, nervous and maybe a tiny bit hopeful, swallowing once. "Nah." Eyes flicking down and then up. "Is that okay?"

This was going to kill him. 

-

If anything, Thomas’s plan surrounding his school friend’s party backfires. Newt watched the entire night, looked at the way that Thomas laughed and glowed and talked about A.I, about what they were doing. Thomas _belonged_ here.

-

Newt figures that if he’s going to be fucking heartbroken in a few weeks, he better make it worth his while. So, selfishly, he lets himself get lost in it. _Fully_ lost in it, figuring that he might as well not half-ass his own absolute clusterfuck.

He goes to pick Thomas up at his bus stop, because if things weren’t coming to an abrupt screeching halt after the summer, that’s what he’d have done from the start.

“Pick me up. From school.” Thomas had mumbled, eyes flashing defiantly. Almost daring Newt. Daring him to care. Newt decides with morbid willfulness to pretend like Thomas was staying.

And he starts acting like it.

There’s something about that, about acting like he’d always kind of wanted too. At least for over a year now. Brushing his arm to get his attention. Leaning in closer than necessary to speak into his ear. Watching the way Thomas would swallow and blush and grin and seem just as happy as Newt. If he caught Alby staring once or twice, contemplative look on his face, Newt doesn’t acknowledge it. Doesn’t even care, really.

He doesn’t care about much these days, except for the way that Thomas’s arms would wrap around his neck, head tilting up as Newt’s hands ran slow steady lines up and down from his shoulder blades to his hips. The two of them tucked into Teresa’s dark backyard, pressed against the wall of her house. Lips moving slow and heavy. Kissing goodnight, a warm summer breeze ghosting between them.

It kinda becomes a nightly thing, these drawn-out ‘supposed to take five minutes but it ends up being an hour’ good-byes.

And then there’s one night in particular.

Thomas laughs, breaking away, barely, their noses brushing, already on their third unsuccessful attempt. “I gotta go in.” He mumbles and Newt nods. And then Thomas kisses him again. “Newt I-” Mouths locking and hands tracing.

“You gotta go in?” Newt asks while pressing their foreheads together, and even as he speaks Thomas is kissing him, grinning against his lips.

“Mhm. I gotta go in.” Still kissing him, Thomas’s arms wound tightly around his neck, and Newt can’t help but pull their hips together, shivering at the sensation and the static that shoots up his spine.

“You gotta go in.” Newt repeats, frowning seriously and then can’t hold the expression at all, the whole thing melting the second Thomas swoops up again. And Thomas laughing, feeling his chest shake pressed against his own? Newt was floating higher than Atlas.

Thomas kisses him _hard_ closed lips and with a definitive edge, breaking away with some difficulty. Newt let’s go instantly, but then Thomas is holding his hand even as he walks towards the screened backdoor. “I gotta go.” Their fingers seconds away from separating.

“You gotta go.” Newt agrees, solemn. Their arms lifting, hands staying locked together even as Thomas walks backwards slowly.

“I gotta go.” Thomas says, body leaning so that they could stay in contact.

Newt nods. “You gotta go.” Just the tips of the pads of their fingers were touching. Thomas goes still. Smiles. Throws himself back into Newt’s arms, which happily wrap around him, the whole thing starting over again. And then-

“Be with me.” Thomas whispers breathless against Newt’s cheek. The crickets that had been singing seconds ago were gone, and all Newt could hear was ukulele strings.

-

When they sit on the hill by the bullet train tracks and Thomas starts to talk about school, about his projects, about his _future,_ Newt notices how Thomas never mentions himself, only Brenda, when he speaks of the upcoming year at A.I. Thomas really didn’t think he was going to get in. Still hadn’t said he was going to go, and Newt’s heart seizes up in terror. He closes his eyes against the bright blue sky and the future as well, doing his best to just stay in the moment. Because he had to end it. 

But not today. A few more days.

When Thomas kisses him under the fireflies Newt commits the sensation to memory, hand coming up to cup his cheek.

A few more days.

-

Somewhere in-between the whirlwind of fists and raging bubbling anger that turns his vision red, Newt’s brain reminds him, in no uncertain terms, that this was _all his fault_. By the time Brenda throws them out of the alley and onto the street, everything in his head has boiled down to hollow crystal-clear understanding. That he’d always put Tommy in danger just by being with him, would always hold him back, and that if he didn’t do this _now_ he never would.

After Minho shepherds both furious brunettes out of the house Newt goes cold, walking quickly through the kitchen he felt more at home in than his own, shouldering open the backyard screen door.

And when Dan has it in him, has the _bravery_ to break down, to sit slumped at the picnic table with his head in his hands, to let everything fall out of his mouth that had been eating up his head since his dad had gone away, Newt’s childhood idolization of him bursts back into existence.

Because _holy shit_ that isn’t easy. Newt should fucking know.

Alby’s hand doesn’t leave Dan’s side once, Ximena rubs soothing circles between Dan's shaking shoulder blades, her expression heartbroken. Newt reaches out and knocks his knuckles against his cousin’s, and Dan looks up, eyes red. “We’ll figure it out. This is family shit, after all.” Newt jokes. Dan smiles. Weak, but there.

-

Walking over to Teresa’s house feels like moving through water as what Newt was about to do settles on him. Newt’s lungs disappear right out of his chest, looking at Thomas in his dark bedroom. Watching the realization dawn in his eyes, ( _He has nice eyes_ ) when he figures out where all the past “Listen-Tommy-” were going (and Newt _finally_ managed to say it).

He didn't stop himself from kissing Thomas. He should’ve. But. Just one more time.

“I love you.” Thomas whispered up to him, heart breaking right in front of his eyes, and Newt waits for it. Expects it, even.

And there it was, right on cue. That damn ukulele.


	5. Valid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter size is ridiculous and I am ridiculous and it's done!!!! Thanks again to everyone that commented/kudo/bookmarked! It honestly means the world to me.

“I love you.”

Thomas’s words hang in the air.

Newt twitches, freezing. And then he leans down and kisses Thomas in an exact replica of their first, both of his lips catching more of Thomas’s lower.

And when they move everything is muted.

How when Newt shifts between Thomas’s legs there’s only shattered breathing. When Thomas tugs Newt’s shirt over his head it’s only the rustle of fabric. How Newt muffles his groan in the side of his neck, and the feeling of breath against his skin lights off fireworks in his nerve endings, everything exploding and shaking, and he doesn’t even know what he’s whispering, only that he’s asking Newt for _something_.

When Newt makes him shatter apart Thomas throws his head to the side, feeling hands convulse on his hips and Newt’s mouth latch onto his neck, sucking and kneading his pulse point between teeth, wave after wave, and through it all Newt touches him like a goodbye.

They lie together shoulder to shoulder silently after, breathing heavy and staring at the whirling ceiling fan.

When Thomas wakes up in the morning it’s instantaneous, sitting bolt upright in bed at the first moment of consciousness. He was alone. Newt was gone.

-

“ _Whatthefuckwereyouthinking?_ ” Is hissed into Thomas’s ear roughly three seconds after Brenda hauls him into a broom closet at school (and even the _broom closet_ is nice, is that _real dried lavender_ in a glass jar what the fuck). Thomas blinks dully down at her, exhausted and blurry and barely able to focus and-

“Is that a _fucking hickey_?” Shoving him against the wall, rattling the shelves and Thomas winces, because the aches and pains are manageable but definitely _not nice_ and Brenda had just made about two thirds of them go off again.

“I-”

“A _hickey_?”

“Bren-”

“Are you _kidding me with this shit_?”

Thomas’s tenuous hold on his temper explodes. “ _Yes_. Okay? Yes. It’s a fucking hickey, okay? Who the fuck cares? Is it a issue? Is this what we need to be focusing on? My _fucking_ hickey?” He snarls and Brenda slowly raises her eyebrows at him, and nothing more. His shoulders slump. Maybe this was the day he dies. But Brenda, surprisingly, drops it. Which only makes Thomas realize just how serious this might actually be.

“What the fuck were you _doing_? You’re _Greenvale_. You can’t be around our part of the borough with your guy Dan pulling the shit he’s pulling.” Spat out like an accusation.

Thomas raises his eyebrows incredulously. “ _You_ never told me where you were from either!” Gesturing between the two of them and Brenda rolls her eyes. Thomas takes a deep shuddering breath and brings his hands up in the universal ‘hold on’ gesture that transcends time and space and teenagers screaming at each other in broom closets. “Listen-Bren. You’ve got to understand, Dan, the guy that’s been starting stuff, I dunno what he’s done but Newt had _nothing_ to do with any of it.”

She looks at him silently, eyes narrowing and contemplative. “That Dan guy, he really messed up the brother of one of the guy’s that jumped you. _Really_ put him on pause. _Bad_ Thomas.”

A long beat of silence.

Thomas swallows. “He gonna be okay?”

“...eventually.”

“Is he…did you…a friend?”

Her eyes flash angrily, looking almost red in the light. “Yeah.”

He raked frantic hands through his hair. “Okay, well. It’ll get handled. I’ll handle it, somehow. Can you pass it along? Dan’s, uh. Friends, they’ve got him under control now, and he’s been having a shit time. His dad got put away and…and just. I’m sorry. And the others are sorry. And Newt had _nothing_ to do with it so…just…”

There’s a long tense silence. Brenda tilts her head and scans him as if she’s taking him apart from the inside out like one of her engines. (He hopes she will take it all.) “Yeah. I’ll pass it along.” She eyes him, silently, before adding “And I know Newt had nothing to do with it. I’ll tell them to back off.” Thomas’s shoulders slump with relief.

“They’ll listen to you?”

Brenda shrugs, reaching down and picking at a thread on her shirt before shrugging nonchalantly. “Yeah. My dad’s got pull with certain people.”

“Okay.” He breathes, legs in danger of giving out. “Thanks.” Tacked on weakly. If there was one thing that this strange summer had taught him, it was that once Brenda got an idea in her mind, she’d never stop.

Brenda somehow senses his Enemy Number One legs and takes pity on him, sliding down the wall and sitting with her knees bent as an excuse for Thomas to do the same. And he does. Definitely not with a sigh of relief, no way. She looks him over and Thomas sees how her eyes focus on the bruise peeking out from his shirt, the long scrape across his elbow, his scabbed knuckles. “You okay?” She asks finally and he laughs weakly.

“Would’ve been a lot less okay if you hadn’t gotten them to scatter.” Rubbing his face with his hand, resisting the urge to grip his own hair and _pull_ , just to feel something sharp and angry.

Brenda locks her fingers together, wiggling them and tapping them against each other. “…Newt okay?” She asks after a beat of silence and Thomas nods.

“Yeah.”

She locks and unlocks her fingers and, for the first time in history, looks guilty. Thomas jerks upright when understanding hits him like a brick wall. “You knew who he was, didn’t you? At Aris’s party. When I…when I introduced you to him. You had a look…” He says and she presses her lips together, wiggling her eyebrows and nodding once.

“Yeah. Everyone knows that guy Matt, _one_ of the guys, the car operation or whatever, had a kid that goes by ‘Newt’. ‘ _Newt_ ’ honestly? Fuck me. Newt.” She snorts, scratching her short hair. “That’s when I put it together. Figured if you two knew each other then you must’ve been from the same place. Anyways-turns out that someone else knew who he was as well, knew about his connection to Dan… and that guy Dan had it coming… and…you know. Cousin for a brother or whatever. You know how it goes.” She shrugged, completely matter-of-fact. “They’d already seen you. By the time I got to the end of the alley and saw it all going down I figured everyone scattering was the best bet.” Her eyes flashed, lingering over the small mark on Thomas’s neck that he’d noticed that morning in the bathroom (He’d almost put his fist through the mirror). “I wasn’t sure but…you two?”

Thomas clenches his eyes shut, fighting against the thickness rising in his throat and the sting behind his eyes, aches and pains both physical and metaphorical banging against his nerves. “Pretty sure it’s over, so. Doesn’t matter.” He says, only slightly uneven and maybe rebellious, hands curling into fists. (He congratulates himself on it. And, you know what? Kudos to Thomas. He gets this one. Keeping your voice level when your heart is breaking is honestly pretty impressive.)

“Oh.” She says. And then- “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

Brenda lets out a huge sigh and her head falls back against the wall, looking to the ceiling. “That why you’ve been so weird about going here in the fall?”

Thomas swallowed. “No-um. A bit. Kind of.”

She frowned. “Not like you can’t see him on the weekends Thomas. Don’t throw this away.”

The words scrapped out of his mouth like sandpaper. “It’s not that I don’t want to go…” He freezes, alarms blaring in his head. That line of thought was too dangerous. Biting the inside of his cheek before starting again. “My, uh. My mom. She’s gone. For a few years now. If I go here I can’t get parental permission to leave. I’ll be stuck here. Or worse, if I try to go here they might find me out. I might end up in the system, in foster care. I can’t risk it.”

A long beat of silence. Thomas grabs a random bottle off one of the shelves, spinning it between his fingers and they pointedly avoid looking at each other.

“Oh.”

When they slip into Bio class twenty minutes late, both of them looking impressively pale and worn, their friends do double-takes. “What’s wrong?” Winston asks, concern drawing his eyebrows together as he takes in Thomas’s bruises and scrapes from his desk next to Thomas. He shakes his head and Winston turns to the front with a frown that clearly states that Thomas wasn’t fooling anyone. Rachel watches them with observant genius eyes.

“Are you okay?” Aris whispers hesitantly from his seat directly in front of Thomas and his vision mists over, not for the first, and _definitely_ not the last time today.

‘ _What would happen if you walked to Aris house_?’.

He swallows, tapping his tablet and the screen lighting up under his finger, his eyes welling and glazing everything with mist. “Nah.” He chokes out.

-

He gets off the bus and looks at the empty bench next to his stop, sitting down heavily on it and almost, _almost_ cries. He goes to Alby and Ximena’s and woodenly tells them what Brenda said. Spinning quickly away before they could question anything.

When he walks into Teresa’s house and darts into his-not-his room past Minho and Teresa he _almost_ cries. He paces and his chest heaves and he looks at the wires and the tech and the half-finished projects and contemplates smashing them all into pieces. Then he contemplates walking into the nearest pawn shop and selling it all, getting just enough credits for a bullet-train ticket to _anywhere_.

And then he sits on his bed and he _almost_ cries when he smells sagebrush on his sheets. There’s a faint knock and even before Thomas can open his mouth Minho’s barreling through the door with Teresa slipping inside after him and closing it with a click. They share a moment of long, wavering silence and their eyes drift to his neck. Teresa nods once to herself, and then she’s walking over. Sitting on the bed next to him and resting her head on his shoulder, both her hands clasping around his left palm and squeezing.

“I’m sorry Tom.”

Thomas eyes prickle again and he _almost_ cries. Swallowing with difficulty. “I wish I’d told you.” Her hands squeeze his again.

“You didn’t have to.”

He looks down at the crown of her hair in shock. “You knew?”

Teresa gives a small snort from her spot on his shoulder, and even though he can’t see her face he knows she’s rolling her eyes at him. “Not for a long time. But then, yeah.”

Minho throws himself down on Thomas’s other side, managing to smile and frown all at once. “You guys are good together. You’ll figure it out.” Thomas blinks rapidly and clears his throat, feeling his Adams apple bob. A wave of exhaustion washes over him, and the world blurs again. His shoulders give a single shudder that he can’t stop, no matter how much he tries.

“It’ll be okay.” Teresa mutters and he lets his head lean on hers, curls tickling his cheek.

“Thomas?”

“Yeah Min?”

“Where do you go every day?”

He starts like he’s been electrocuted, staring at Minho and his brain suddenly and completely grinding to a halt. “Summer school.” Offered with only a hint of panic. Minho shakes his head.

“No, you don’t. I _did_ summer school after freshman year, remember? Geography? Fuck my dad was so pissed-anyways I know that you don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn and come home at six. _And_ I know that our jacked school’s jacked summer classes aren’t tough enough to lay you out the way you’ve been. You’re too smart for that. So.” Minho says, holding out his hand as if Thomas was supposed to put the answer right in his palm. “Where do you go every day?”

Teresa squeezes his hand and Thomas _almost_ cries as his head searches madly for some kind of excuse. He was supposed to be smart. “I go to summer school.” He mutters and Minho opens his mouth to argue. “I got into a summer program at, uh. At A.I, you know, the S.T.E.M school.” Minho’s previously open-and-ready-to-argue mouth closes quickly.

“What?” Teresa breathes the word, squeezing his hand again, eyes growing wide.

He tells them. About all of it. About feeling so alone and then having Brenda, and then the others. About the guilt and the lies and the fact that he hadn’t bothered to mention the entrance exam because he _thought it wouldn’t matter_. How if he decided to go there, if he got in, he’d have to move across the checkpoint and _traitor_ had been knocking in his head all summer. (Teresa squeezes his hand _hard_ and Minho’s mouth pops open and closed again.) He doesn’t tell them about Newt, and they don’t ask. He’s grateful.

When he’s done he takes a huge, massive, month-and-a-half-of-secrets-out-in-the-open breath of relief and there’s a long moment of silence.

“Do you want to go?” Teresa asks him simply.

The question pulls the breath out of his lungs. _Yes_. “I…I don’t know.” Lips barely moving and looking at the ground, letting his eyes slide out of focus. Panic rising as he finally, _finally_ admits it. “If I try to go…I won’t be able to come home, like, _at all_ and I don’t want them to ask questions. I don’t…” His Adams apple bobs furiously. “I don’t want them too…I can’t get shipped off again.” He admits in a whisper, letting his head hang forward. The bodies on either side pressing warmly against him.

Minho let out a deep sigh, chest deflating before he grasps Thomas’s shoulder and gives a single firm shake, standing up. “We’ll figure it out. You look wrecked. Get some sleep, we’ll be in the living room.”

Teresa squeezes his hand again, _hard_ , standing as well. Planting a firm kiss to his forehead, saying quietly “I’m so proud of you.” before following Minho.

Thomas’s eyes mist over again. He can’t leave them. “Kay.” Barely strangled out. They close the door quietly and Thomas lets himself fall back on the bed fully clothed, pulling the covers over his entire body. And then when that’s not enough, his head as well.

Under his sheets in a room that is not his, the sinking feeling fills Thomas’s lungs and he lets himself drown.

-

It was peaceful, down under the water, just like he’d imagined it would be. No Virtual Reality experience required.

-

About a month after the entrance exam and Thomas kissing Newt, (which means, if Thomas had it right in his head, that this was roughly half way through May.) he had been called back to the Principal’s Office to the hoots and applause of his friends. His smile was decidedly weaker than the first time.

Thomas sat down in the exact same chair and she’d smiled at him, and he’d known. His stomach dropped and his palms started to sweat, and when she’d turned her screen towards him and he saw the large ‘Summer Program-Accepted’ he’d almost thrown up, because this _wasn’t supposed to happen_.

Thomas thinks ‘No.’ and then ‘ _Fuck_ no.’ but what comes out of his mouth is-

“Oh.”

He’d walked out of the office in a daze and directly into Newt. “ _Shitfuck_.” Bouncing off him and stumbling backwards, the hall-pass in Newt’s fingers slipping to the floor.

Newt laughed, putting out a hand to steady him. “Always so elegant.” And then frowning, looking at Thomas closely. “You looked like a ghost when they called your name. You okay?”

Thomas gave a weak laugh and knocked his knuckle against an old locker with chipped blue paint, the sound hollow and metallic and ‘fuk u’ written in sharpie in the corner. Thomas traced his fingers along the letters. “Something like that.” His eyes flicked up. “So, what, you came to check up on me?”

Newt stared down at him silently and Thomas couldn’t help but flush.

They hadn’t talked about it. Not a single time. Not once. And Newt would smile at Thomas and then it would be gone. Thomas would wordlessly ask Newt for things and then dart away, and when they saw each other next it would be easy grins and nothing different between them. Until the next time it happened. And it was happening more and more and Thomas was starting to feel like everyone could see the whites of his eyes, as if he was something trapped and panicking. (Because, a tiny part of him was really, _really_ liking this. Maybe too much. Maybe things with Newt were just-maybe- _something_.)

“Hey.” Newt reached out and gave him a gentle shake.

At the touch Thomas jolted out of his thoughts and tugged on his hat brim fitfully, doing his best to smile. “You know Paige. Can kill a man with a single look.” He jokes weakly and Newt’s brow furrows more, eyes narrowing.

With a hum and then a nudge of Thomas’ shoulder with his own, Newt started to wander down the hall and towards the sunlit door, fingers walking along the wall as he went. “Come on, you need some air.”

Thomas’s tongue presses against the inside of his cheek, watching the way Newt’s hair skimmed his jaw. “Alright.” Hands brushing lightly, once, as they walk along the street, and for a brief second their eyes lock then fall away. Sliding along the storefronts and then the neighborhoods and finally, to a back-alley door of empty building that looked _significantly_ worse for wear. “Uh, Newt?” Newt hummed at his question, patting his pockets and then his backpack, rooting around and pulling a small key chain out with a victorious grin. Thomas looked up and then left and right. “Newt are you, like, a super villain? Is this the part where you show me your evil lair and ask me to join you?”

Newt laughed. “Please. My evil lair would have a lot more style than this. I’d have at least three shark tanks, no question. Besides, Teresa’s the evil genius, we decided this.” Unlocking the backdoor and ushering Thomas through into the dusty space, letting him take it all in.

And Thomas did. Old heavy machinery all over the floor, boxes that’d long been left to mold, the occasional rusted car part. A whole gutted engine. So _so_ cool. “This place is data as _fuck_ Newt. How’d you find it?” Asking as he spun around in the abandoned garage that he would one day come to think of as theirs.

Newt laughed, leading him through the mostly empty space with casual purpose. “Used to be one of the hideouts. Place to stash cars when the block was too hot to move the merchandise. Dan told me about it ages ago. It was all locked up tight but I got curious and snooped around.”

“Really?” Thomas asked, tone bright and trailing after Newt, looking with interest at the residual echoes of crime. Newt hummed and shouldered open a door into what must’ve been the back office, and when Thomas steps in he closes the door behind him. The only things inside are a old desk, a dusty filing cabinet and a few rows of metal shelving. A bit post-apocalyptic, a bit office-administration. A nice blend.

Newt nods towards the empty far wall and pulls a spray can of paint out of his backpack with a grin. “Thought you could practice your tag, considering that Teresa’s absolutely t _rashing_ all of us in that arena.”

Thomas wiggles his eyebrows, reaching out and shaking the can. For a few minutes the only sound in the room was the tap-tap-tap of the ball bearing and the hiss of paint being sprayed. Thomas leans back and sighs at his work, a scrawling wavy mess. Which may, in fact, be an excellent representation of him. Artistic objective complete. “I have no idea how she does it. It’s like she just makes the paint go _exactly_ where she wants it too.”

Newt lets out a small chuckle and prods at the old desk with his shoe. “Honestly it’s Teresa. I doubt she’d let mere _paint_ defy her.” Thomas had privately decided on the walk over that this whole ‘Alexandria Situation’ was ridiculous and needed to be mocked hence-forth. It was a stupid dumb idea. It was hilarious. Especially amidst the graffiti and the residual crime and the history of their block, with Newt right beside him, the whole terrifying concept that hid behind the word ‘Accepted’ suddenly seemed a lot less threatening.

Thomas crouches back down and shakes the can again before frowning. “So wanna hear something super fucking weird?”

“Indubitably.” Newt sighs and comes to crouch next to him and admire the sloppy line work and green on the wall, reaching out to hover a finger over one of the drips of paint edging downwards from where Thomas had sprayed it on too heavily.

“So-you’ll never believe this. Paige calls me into her office like a month ago and starts spouting all this shit about some summer program that you take to get into the Alexandria Institute-you know that crazy-rich-private S.T.E.M school past the security checkpoint? The one that's always on the news?” He looked over and Newt nodded at him, head slowly tilting in curiosity.

And Thomas _already_ felt better. He’d tell Newt and they’d laugh about it and that would be it. Maybe Newt would help him with a creative way to send back his resounding ‘ _Fuck_ no’.

Could they, potentially, get a smoke bomb across the security barriers without being arrested?

“What’s that got to do with you?” Newt asks, something lurking in his tone. (Tone, everything, etc, etc.)

Thomas laughs once at the pure fucking _absurdity_ of the whole thing, turning back to the tag on the wall. “Well she made me write the entrance exam right? Guess it got around that I’m okay at coding,”- Newt snorts but Thomas continues stubbornly- “and programing and stuff. Paige starts spouting all this crap about how if I pass the summer program I’m accepted to the school. I move there and live in the dorms and ‘Use the right tools’ or what-the-fuck-ever. Anyways-get this-” He pauses to shake the can and speaks over the fizzle of paint spraying. “I got _in_ Newt. I passed the entrance exam for the summer program. How funny is that? I _wish_ I could see those rich fucks faces when I turn em down. I gotta think of something good. I was considering smoke bomb, but I’m open to suggestions.”

There was a long silent pause. Thomas traced the lines again with paint, tongue sticking out the side of his mouth in concentration. “Newt?” He asks. And then when he doesn’t get a response he turns.

Newt was staring at him, eyebrows raised and mouth hanging slightly open. He blinks twice, shaking himself and standing up, it seemed, for the sole reason of being able to look down on him. “Thomas, you have to go.”

“What?” Thomas’s face pulls into a laughing grimace, still crouching. “No way I’m going to that thing. I’m not wasting a summer just for them to say ‘No way Greenvale trash, spot’s been filled. Thanks for meeting our quota for the tax break though.’.”

“How do you know that? You could really get in.”

Thomas shakes his head and laughs disbelievingly again. Standing as well and stretching. “Are you fifty-one-fifty? I’d never get in. Not in this lifetime. The whole things rigged, you know that. Plus _if_ I got in, which I wouldn’t, I’m not _moving away_.” He grinned sarcastically. “What would you guys do without me?”

“Thomas you have to go.” Newt repeated, dead serious and reaching out. Gripping Thomas’s shoulders, shaking him once gently like the can of paint, somber mood completely throwing Thomas off kilter. They were supposed to be _laughing_ about this. Newt shakes him again. “You _passed_. That means you can get into A.I, and that’s the _best_ school on the ground in the city. You have to go.”

Thomas felt the grin slip from his face. “No, I don’t.”

Newt’s eyebrows rocket up. “You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not. And I’m not going. Fuck that Newt.” He snaps, more than a little (afraid)pissed off by this point. Because this was supposed to be _funny_ and if Newt wasn’t taking it as a joke, if Newt was taking it seriously then _Thomas_ might have to take it seriously too. And he really, really didn’t want to do that.

“Tomm _-_.”

Thomas pushed Newt’s hands off of his shoulders with a scowl and gave a light shove, just for good measure. “I’m not going. I wouldn’t even told you if I’d known you were going to get all psycho about it.” He tried to walk past Newt, only to have his hand reach out and block his path. Thomas felt his hackles raise and something else entirely spark deep in his stomach.

“Thomas.”

“I’m not doing it Newt. Just drop it. Fuck.” Thomas snapped but when he tried to push past, Newt reached out to touch his arm gently. And the gentleness, more than anything, sends fear rocketing through him. Everything was tipping sideways, everything was off-kilter. Panic rising in his throat. And then Thomas shoved him _hard_ and not just for good measure, but also to make Newt stop looking at him like he was an idiot turning down a lifeline on a sinking raft.

Newt shoved him _back_ and Thomas couldn’t help the snarled “ _Fuck you_.” from snapping out between his teeth because he was _angry_ and that meant _afraid_. Newt’s eyes darkened and the hands on his shoulders pulled away quick, held up and beseeching.

“Thomas you _have to go_. You could get _in_. You’re amazing with tech, and if you go to A.I you could go _anywhere_ for university. You could…you could get out. Tommy, you could go to _Atlas_.”

A chip of ice slips into his stomach and Thomas wishes that he’d never said a word, that he had just kept _not mentioning it_ until after the deadline had passed. But instead he’d _said something_ and the sinking feeling in his stomach that felt vaguely Blue saw it necessary to point out that this was, in fact, all his fault. 

(Thomas wears his mother’s abandonment like a cardboard sign dangling from a string around his neck like one of the people that walked down the street preaching the end of the world, and written in bold thick letters it declares ‘Never leave the ones you love.’)

“Fuck that.” Thomas snarls because this is all feeling dangerously like Newt wanting Thomas to move away from him, which, in a lot of confusing ways, made Thomas even more afraid. And after all, in their part of town the first reaction to fear is _anger_. _Because what if Newt was regretting this whole thing and this was his way to make sure it ended_? No muss, no fuss, Thomas just _gone_. Situation handled.

“Eloquent as always.” Newt teases sharply and it only makes him see red. So he shoves Newt again and then he kisses him instead, hands clutching at his shirt and pulling him closer, and Newt gets the message.

Thomas’s back hits the wall and Newt’s suddenly _everywhere_. And it’s hard and desperate and there’s a hint of something else in the way Newt’s moving against him. The way that Newt’s hands run up and down his sides and the way that he’s biting and nipping at Thomas’s lips to get him to open his mouth. The way that Newt reached down, gripping his hips and making him inhale sharp, clutch at shoulders because the _friction_. 

Hands squeeze and hold Thomas in place while Newt moves against him and his whole body is glitching, signals firing and misfiring and he blames it most _definitely_ on the misfiring when he gasps out a desperate “More.”

With a deep groan Newt is slamming a hand up against the wall just above Thomas’s shoulder and it should have pissed him off but it only makes that ‘something’ low in his stomach _burn_. Newt’s other reaching down and Thomas twitches, letting out a sharp gasp and body chasing the feeling involuntarily. But Thomas wants _more_.

“More.” Sighed against frantic lips and the way that Newt _shudders_ has Thomas running his fingers through blonde silky strands and pulling, forcing them to lock together. It’s harsh and hot and angry and good and, just maybe, a tiny bit sad.

The horrible sinking feeling that’s been creeping up on him for weeks bubbles in his chest and Thomas pulls tighter, reeling from the way that Newt presses him into the drywall. Thomas’s hands slide down Newt’s chest and then lower. Starting to undo Newt’s pants with shaking movements. “Newt?” Whispered soft and he’s not brave enough (yet) to admit that he’s begging.

Newt stills when it clicks in his head what he wants, lips pausing in their frantic kissing and eyes fluttering open to look down at him. “Thomas.” His voice low and rough, cheeks pink and gaze fever bright, worrying his lip between his teeth. A slash of white against flushed red. “Thomas.” Muttered again and Thomas can’t _stand it_. Can’t stand the way Newt is looking at him and can’t stand the way he feels like he’s drowning in his own head and can’t stand _Newt not kissing him_. So he presses close, hands reaching up to grip the front of Newt’s shirt.

“Tommy-“ Newt tries to step back, but Thomas holds fast, fist clinging to the fabric and Newt let out a shuddering breath. “Tommy we-” He doesn’t let the words leave Newt’s mouth, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what came next. Firm hands griped his shoulder and push him back, just slightly, and Thomas is still leaning in even as he bumps against the wall. 

“Newt what?” Soft and pained and beseeching. 

Newt moved shaking fingers through his own hair, and then, deciding to go with the other option, starting to push Thomas’s wild mess of brown back into place fitfully. His hat had been knocked off. He doesn't remember that happening. “We should.” He cleared his throat. “Listen, Tommy. We should...” Eyes drift down to his mouth, tongue darting out to run along his teeth, and each word Newt spoke seemed to fall with increasing weight. “We should. We-fuck. I can’t believe I’m.” Newt coughed out a single laugh, looking down and shaking his head. “We should just, we should slow down.”

But before Newt was even done speaking he was kissing Thomas again, lighting him up from the inside, making him spin out, coming forward easily when Thomas gives a fitful tug on his shirt. One of Newt’s hand’s cups his face, thumb stroking his cheek. The other slipping easily around his waist, pinning him to the wall and pulling Thomas against him in a very apparent tug of war, both physical and metaphorical. 

His lips felt pillowed and numb and maybe shaking a little from the way that Newt held him so tight, not an inch of space between them. “Do you want to slow down?” Thomas managed to shudder out over the pulse in his throat. 

With an audible gulp Newt kissed him again, then let himself tip down, their foreheads pressing together. Mouth open and moving soundlessly for a moment. With a shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the fact that Newt’s hand at his lower back was drawing tiny circles around the small dimples there, Thomas leans up and kisses him to stop him from looking so lost.

It doesn’t work.

Even as they press together he can feel the sadness leeching from Newt’s movements. 

Thomas tries another time, because no one would ever say he wasn’t determined, and there were few things in the world that felt worse than dark brown eyes going sad and far away like a distant mountain. “Newt I.” Newt’s breath was ghosting against his skin and he couldn’t think. “Newt do you want to slow down? We can.” He shivered. “We can slow down?”

A click in Newt’s throat, the fingers splayed on Thomas’s back curl, digging in, blunt bitten nails scratching sensitive overheated skin and the sensation makes Thomas inhale sharply, tipping his face up in a wordless request. 

“I-” Newt croaks. A deep inhale, holding it, wiry shoulders tense. “No.” So Thomas kissed him, slow and soft and asking him wordlessly for things until Newt pulls back, searching his face. “Have you, before?” The words warm against his skin. Thomas answering without making a sound, moving forward, brushing their lips together.

“Tommy.” Mumbled against his mouth, and the tone of it makes Thomas flush because all he can think about is keeping everything in his head quiet and _nothing_ makes his mind go as blank as Newt. And then Newt’s lips are doing something at his neck that doesn’t make his mind go blank so much as explode with color and he falls back against the wall, head up and body tight. The (shaking) hands at his jeans going still and Newt whispering, “This okay? Are you sure?”

“I want. Yeah. Do you…do you want too?” Thomas asks soft into his ear and Newt exhales sharply against moist skin and making him shake. Every thought felt like it was balancing on the tip of a knife. Drywall chalky against his skin. The room smelt like rust and stale air and maybe secrets and Thomas didn’t care because he was _hiding_.

“I do. Yeah.” Newt whispers against his thudding pulse.

There was a crack in the ceiling that he traces with his eyes. “Alright.” Just as quiet.

Thomas had enrolled in A.I the next day.

-

In his-not-his bedroom after confessing everything to Teresa and Minho, Thomas lets himself drown for a day, and then because it felt good, one more. And then on the third morning he deeply contemplates another, watching the clock tick and decides to do just that. 

He burrowed back into his sheets and turned to comfortably let another day pass him by with hazy fitful sleeping and long hours of pulling everything apart everything stitch-by-stitch. It was a bit like poking a bruise, the dull ache satisfying and throbbing and a bit addictive. He inhaled deeply, trying to imagine that the sheets still smelt like Newt and shuts the world out.

His eyes droop closed.

“Up-n-at ‘em.”

The covers were ripped back from over his head and Thomas was suddenly looking at the excruciatingly chipper smile of Minho, flushed and a bit sweaty and clearly just back from his early morning workout. Thomas might hate him a little bit.

He tries to pull them back, tugging on the blanket fitfully. “Min-stop.” Half-successful and managing to get the sheets up to his chin. “Just leave me alone.” He added, turning back to the wall. There was a moment of silence and Thomas shifts, staring resolutely at the wall and trying not to let how guilty he felt show on his face. Because even as he’d said the words he hadn’t meant them. He sighed. “Sorry. I just. I’m…tired.”

“Nah.” Minho chirped and with one massive yank Thomas was uncovered for the first time in days.

He sits up, staring mutinously at one of his now former-best-friends. All thoughts of apology long gone. “What the fuck Minho.”

Minho shrugs, unaffected. “We gave you two days. You needed them. But now you gotta get up. Bosses orders.” He points his thumb over his shoulder and Thomas notices Teresa standing in the doorway, arms crossed and small smile on her face. Thomas glared at his now other-former-best-friend and she shrugs as well.

“You’ve got school. Which is, _apparently_ a lot bigger of a deal than we’ve been led to believe.” Teresa states matter-of-fact. “And Minho’s the only one that’s strong enough to carry you, in case you won’t get out of bed.” She adds, walking over and taking one of his hands, Minho the other, and together the three of them managed to pull him up and on his feet. Teresa wrinkled her nose at him. “Go have a shower, you stink.” And yeah, okay. She had a point. His skin felt gritty, his eyes fuzzy. Thomas is pushed gently towards the bathroom and he goes, but he throws an angry resentful glance over his shoulder at them.

Minho winks.

He lets them push him out into the morning, and he walks down the empty early-hour streets. It made you possessive of a place, being what felt like the only one awake. It gave you a sense of ownership.

Thomas drags himself to the bus stop resentfully. He eats the egg sandwich that Minho had shoved in his hands resentfully. He crosses the checkpoint resentfully and he walks into his school and contemplates burning the whole thing down.

“Thomas!” Echoing over the din of the halls. He turns.

Aris and Rachel and Winston and, yes, even Brenda with her bad attitude, standing there against the lockers, Winston waving and gesturing him over. He feels the warmth of a full stomach, acknowledging the fact that he’d still be under his sheets if it wasn’t for his best friends, and looks at people that he would have _never_ imagined being able to call friends but now does. He also acknowledges that he would’ve never even been here, without Newt. _Newt_.

Thomas doesn’t so much push himself off the bottom of the Blue ocean as start the long, slow, _painful_ process of letting himself float upwards.

-

It happens in fits and stops and starts. Sometimes Thomas only misses Newt excruciatingly, and sometimes he misses him so much that he feels like he can’t breathe. He avoids all the places that he knows Newt will go and he spends long hours at school and when he walks down sidewalk he keeps his eyes down. School, if anything, surprisingly helped. (He hated it more than a little bit.) His final exam which would determine if he had a spot at A.I was fast approaching, and Thomas refuses to think of anything that comes after that date.

The only thing of notable difference was Minho and Teresa were wholly and completely aware of everything in his life. It felt good. It felt really good.

“What…what the fuck does this say?” Minho asks with a frown and a disgusted grimace as if the math on the screen had thrown up on his shoes. Thomas smiles and snags his tablet back and Minho gives it up easily, leaning back from his seat at Teresa’s small kitchen table and yawning.

“I hate this too. No one gets it. Well, this one guy, Winston, he does. He used to use math as a way to make his diving better, something about angles. He was on his old school’s team.” He offers absentmindedly, almost missing Minho’s smile. Thomas frowns. “What?”

Minho snatched the tablet back, swiping to the next question. “Nothing. It’s just cute. You’re such a dork and now you’ve got all these dork friends.” He flashes his teeth. “Think we’d all play nice together?”

With an eyebrow wiggle and a bite of the small ball of bread (pão de queijo, Mariana’s specialty) Thomas shrugs. “Honestly I think you’d fall head over heels for my friend Rachel.”

Minho’s head tilted in interest. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Think you could get me across the checkpoint for a date with this ‘Rachel’ when you’ve got big private school clout?”

Thomas rolled his eyes and chewed furiously. “I’m not getting in.” Gesturing for Minho to start quizzing him again.

Minho sighs with raised eyebrows. “Yeah. Definitely. Sure seems like it.” Grimacing down at the offensive math.

Later that evening when Teresa had taken over for Minho as study-partner, she looked at him and frowned as they sat in her room. Thomas didn’t bother to look up from the questions he was revising. “What is it T?” He says absently, reaching over to write a line down in his notebook.

“Does writing things down by hand really help you remember better? It’s so old fashioned.” She asked for the hundredth time, flopped onto her bed with her head at the foot and her feet by the headboard. Decidedly reverse and decidedly Teresa.

Thomas shrugged. “I dunno if it does with anyone else but it helps me, for sure.”

“It’s gonna be weird when you’re all…” She gestured vaguely. (Thomas winced internally, he really _had_ been-as Harriet would say-trying to not, vaguely.)

Thomas frowned, looking down at the tablet and then jotting a line. “When I’m all what?”

“You know, all _successful_ at your new school. A big deal.” She shrugs, lying on her stomach and legs kicking in the air and making a long-abandoned stuff animal dance.

Thomas laughed, writing down another note. “I’m not getting in.” He says in knee-jerk response before adding “T, if you wanna talk success, we literally once all agreed that you’re the most likely to turn evil and achieve world domination.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Well, Jen from the Convenience store, Princess-who do you think? Me and Minho and New-” His voice clipped off suddenly on the last name and for the ten thousandth time that hour Thomas fought the urge to ask Teresa about Newt. He bit down on his tongue and the silence stretched.

_(Does he miss me? Is he upset? Has he figured out yet that he’s a fucking idiot? I miss him. Is he sorry? Why hasn’t he tried to talk to me? I love him. Does he miss me? Why didn’t he say it back? I miss him. Does he love me? I think he might love me. Does he?)_

“You’re right.” Teresa sighed, poking at a long abandoned stuffed animal and Thomas starts out of his constant love-sick looping inner monologue.

“Huh?”

Teresa looks at him with her big eyes and smirks. “You’re right. I’d definitely achieve world domination.”

“Would I be your second in command?” Thomas asks with a grin.

“Nah, I’m giving that to Harriet, she’s ruthless.”

“Then what am I?”

Teresa examined her nails, the pink color long since chipped and starting to crack. She reached over and grabbed the bottle of polish from her night stand, unscrewing the top and starting to repaint them. “Evil minion?” She offers with a contemplative frown.

“You know, it’s funny? I always related deeply to the flying monkeys.”

She nodded appreciatively. “I feel like that’s a good fit.”

Thomas grinned. “Understatement.” 

The next day he slipped outside, walking by himself to the sandwich shop for a study break and keeping his eyes glued to the ground, kicking a pebble almost the entire way there. Ordering three meatball subs and practically running back under the swaying trees. Because if Thomas slows to a walk then his feet would take him to Newt’s house. And then he’d bang on the door and maybe Newt would open it.

And Newt would exhale, once. Sharp and frustrated and wooden. A tight ‘ _Thomas_.’ And gentle but firm hands would push him back and away. Closing the door in his face like Thomas had wished he’d done the night that they had first kissed.

But maybe… _maybe_ if Thomas went and banged his fist on the door Newt would sigh in relief, and then his arms would come up and wrap around Thomas tightly in that particular way they did, pulling him close and grounding him. Maybe Newt would press his lips against Thomas’s, hand moving to rub soothing circles on his back. ‘ _I’m sorry. I missed you. I was an idiot. I love you too._ ’

Thomas swallows thickly, pavement blurring and thanking whatever was left up there in the sky that no one was out on Alby and Ximena front porch. He was hunched and cradling the bag of subs like a precious child, which was kinda weird, actually, so he stops. Dragging himself down the street, miserable and stressed and trying his best to make it through the week. And he was doing an okay job of it, but the question mark in his mind that was once sharp eyes and a small little smile was an ache that bordered on _excruciating_.

When he walked back in the house Teresa’s mother was sitting at the kitchen table and Thomas knew in the way that all teenagers knew when faced with a parental figure sitting and waiting at the kitchen table, that he was Officially Fucked. 

Teresa’s bedroom door was closed but Thomas knew intrinsically that she was pressed up against the wall, eyebrows furrowed, a curl in her mouth and an ear to a glass cup, listening with the force of a thousand suns. And despite his being Officially Fucked and heartbroken, the though made his lip quirk. 

And then he looks down to Teresa’s mom’s hands and sees what she’s holding. He was, _truly_ , Officially Fucked. “Thomas.” Mariana says when he freezes in the doorway. In her fingers is his school issued tablet, insignia and all in the top corner. She raised it up, waving it slightly. “Your backpack was open on the couch. It must have fallen over, and this was lying on the ground next to it.

He sputtered for a moment. “I can expla-“ 

“Are you mugging people?” She asked him calm and level and he shook his head wildly. 

“No, it’s not-”

“Then why do you have a piece of tech that we both know costs more than you could get in three months?” 

The clock was flashing red and zero in the top right corner. His time had run out.

“I got into the Alexandria Institute.” Thomas says thickly, hands opening and closing at his sides. Trying his best not to shake because _this was it_. Finally, it would be out there, and it was over, and despite the fact that shame ran thick through his veins a part of Thomas was viciously glad. This might make his decision a lot easier. If she kicked him out, and his only other option was the streets, he’d gamble for the all the things he’d been doing his best to tell himself he didn’t want. Live _painfully_ with the fact that he’d bought into the whole fucked up unfair system that put the people he loved here in the first place.

Teresa’s mother’s eyebrows shot down, face falling in shock. “What?” 

Thomas nods and tries to take a deep breath, stifling and tripping over his own organs. “I, uh. Took an entrance exam. A few months ago. I got in.” His fists opened then closed. Open. Close. “I qualified for a scholarship. That’s where I’ve been going all summer. Not, uh. Not summer school. Well, I guess, technically still summer school-but not-you know....” 

Mariana looked at him, shook herself and seemed to recover from the shock with minimal difficulty. She was a nurse, after all. She could do, or handle, literally anything. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Thomas swallowed, feeling his Adam’s apple bob furiously. “I just...” Hands going open and close, open and close. “I didn’t want you to think that...that I was, that me going meant, that this wasn’t enough.” He squeezed his eyes closed in time with his fists clenching. “That I didn’t-that I don’t know how much you’ve done for me. And that I don’t appreciate it. And I got it in my head that going meant that I was saying this isn’t enough. And it _is_. You’ve-you’ve been so good to me and I just…and then I kept not telling anyone, and then it went on too long. And I’m just.” He grits his teeth, steeling himself and opening his eyes to a slightly blurry world. “I’m sorry.”

She’s up and walking towards him before he’s even finished speaking, arms rising like a breeze caught under them. Teresa’s mother is just as beautiful as Teresa, but she’s also shorter then Teresa, which is mildly unfortunate for Thomas when she tries to gather him up in her arms while his chin could rest comfortably on her head. He makes it work. 

“Meu filho.” She says and rubs his back with soothing mother-hands and Thomas finally stops trying to blink back his tears. 

“I got subs for dinner.” He offers with a sniffle. A _manly_ sniffle, mind you.

Her hand stills and then she lets out a small exasperated laugh. “Thank you, Thomas.”

-

School devolves almost exclusively into frantic studying and Thomas and his friends handle the pressure in different ways. Aris swallows and chews his nails and maybe mutters just a bit to himself. Rachel buries her head in her tablet and reads words silently with moving lips. Winston starts to go for swims in the on-site pool at lunch to clear his head.

Brenda for the most part is unaffected, but if Thomas notices her frowning down at her notes and typing just a bit quicker than usual, well. Thomas himself reacts to the mounting pressure surprisingly well, starting to feel the pin-pricks of relief that in a week’s time it’ll all be _over_. He would have two weeks left until school started again. He just wasn’t sure which school he would be returning too. Thomas starts to mix his lives together, as if he blended them enough he would somehow be able to keep both.

“Hey.” He says, slamming his lunch tray down next to Winston, Brenda squished between Aris and Rachel on the other side of the table. 

“Are you not hungry?” Winston asked, frowning at his empty plate.

Thomas shook his head. “Nope. They just didn’t have what I wanted. It’s data though.” He says with a grin, fishing around in his backpack for a moment. He pulls out a small plastic container, opening it and grinning even wider. Picking up the sandwich, taking a huge bite and chewing happily. “Do you like meatball subs?” He asked Rachel and she shrugged. He held the sandwich out to her. “Here-it’s good. Have a bite of mine.”

-

He’s walking along a back alley avoiding Newt’s regular paths in the neighborhood, when he catches sight of Newt, walking down the back alley to avoid Thomas’s regular paths. Because their paths were, for the most part, identical. (There’s a single side street deviation. Thomas taking Elmer St. and Newt taking MLK Blvd, mostly because Newt likes to look at one particular house that was painted bright yellow, it was his favorite.)

Thomas sees Newt (and Minho, his brain registering sluggishly) first, and does the only reasonable thing he can do.

Okay, it’s not like he _dives_ into a door stoop, tucking himself out of sight, but no one could blame him for wanting to avoid _that_ potential shit storm. He listens to their approaching steps with rising dread, checking to make sure he was hidden, pressing back against the brick, feeling it dig and scratch at his skin.

“Jesus Newt, you _stink_. How much have you been smoking?”

A scrape of shoe heel against pavement. “Just had one in Gal’s car with the windows rolled up. Must’ve really stuck.”

“ _Sure_.” Came Minho’s vibrating disbelieving response.

Newt made a noise, half between a scoff and a laugh and it was so bitter that Thomas’s shoulders hunched against the wall.

“Newt.” Minho says gently.

“What.” Snapped back, and Thomas could see clear as day in his mind’s eye the way that Newt would be hunching his shoulders and working his jaw.

“Newt come on man, just talk to him.” There’s a long resounding silence. And then-

“You know.” Newt says flatly. “Thomas told you about A.I.” Thomas swallows. He contemplates plugging his ears.

“Yeah. He finally spilled the beans a few days ago. I figured he told you long before us.”

“Why’d you figure that?” Newt asks, sharp and defensive.

“Newt don’t flip the switch. Come on, just talk to him.”

“I can’t.”

Thomas’s eyes fluttered closed and he wished he could be anywhere else in the world right now. The way Newt’s two words shook was slicing through him.

“Newt, come on. I dunno what went down with you two but-”

“Min I _can’t_. He won’t go.” Thomas’s eyes widen silently, staring blank at the bricks in front of him. Completely frozen.

“This is about Thomas going _to school_? _That’s_ what this is about?”

“He’s got to go, he can’t stay here and I-

“Newt he’s going to go anyways.” Minho cuts him off.

“I-what?” Newt stops short.

“He’s been studying like crazy all week for that exam. He keeps saying he’s ‘not gonna get in’-” Minho’s voice does a deep sulky impression and Thomas has the sarcastic decency to roll his eyes in his hiding place. “-but he’s _going_ to get in. And then he’s going to go.”

There was a sigh and a faint grind of skin against brick and then the soft thump of a body dejectedly hitting the ground. “It’s his only chance Min. To, you know. To get out.”

“He’s going to go.” Minho murmurs comfortingly, and Thomas hears him scrape his shoes on the ground, Minho settling next to Newt. He could see it. The two of them with their heads bent towards each other. How many times had Thomas found them like that? How many years? 

(“Thank god you moved back Tom. Sometimes Minho and Newt would get all wrapped up in being super-best-friends and I’d be left out.” Teresa had teased one day when they were eleven. She’d rolled her eyes while they’d watched the two of them whisper-arguing together, crouched over a scrawled in the sand plan of attack for dodgeball in their primary school playground.)

A huge gusty sigh of relief. “Good.” 

“Newt, you should…you should talk to him. Just…I’d hate to see you guys throw something away, when you didn’t have too.”

“Doesn’t…really matter. He’s going. He’s gotta go Min. Or else he’s…he’ll be stuck here.”

It was quiet between them.

“Newt?” 

“Yeah Min?” 

“I’m really sorry you feel so trapped here.” 

Thomas counted the bricks on the wall in the silence. He got up to sixteen. 

Eventually Newt cleared his throat. “I don’t as much, really. Anymore.” 

“I know. But, still.” 

“Thanks Min.” 

Even after they’d gotten up and left Thomas sat and counted every brick.

-

“Okay. Okay. This is fine. We’ve got this. Does everyone have pens? A bottle of water? Winston-where’s your bottle of water? You _need_ to stay hydrated. Dehydration _rapidly_ decreases brain function and-”

Thomas did his best not to smile as Rachel frantically shoved pens and bottle of water and, weirdly enough, sticks of gum into each of their hands as they waited in the hallway.

“Chewing gum helps you think.” She offers and Thomas unwraps the foil and pops it into his mouth, chewing loudly to pacify her. They stood huddled together, only a few minutes before their exam would start and even Thomas has to admit that his insides were jumping in confusing nervous twists. He fussed with his backpack, patting his sweaty hands on the sides of his jeans and trying to remember the breathing tricks that Minho had taught him.

‘They’re for running but they’re helpful with anxiety too.’ Minho had said with a gentle sqeeze of his shoulders. 

Leaning next to him against the locker Brenda’s nose wrinkles at the gum shoved into her palm. “Got anything besides peppermint?”

Rachel’s face falls with over-anxious desolation. “No.” All around them students paced or stood still or closed their eyes and muttered frantically to themselves, counting things out on their fingers or quizzing their friends with flashcards.

“I’ve got some that’s grape flavor?” Aris offers and Brenda smiles.

“See Bambi? This is why you’re my favorite.” She says, snatching the purple and silver package.

Aris perks up visibly. “I’m your favorite?”

Brenda scoffs, tweaking his nose. “Of course you are. How could you think anything else?”

“Well I figured Thoma-”

“Nah, fuck that guy. Too grumpy.”

“Does that mean I’m no one’s favorite?” Winston asks, face falling.

“You’re _everyone’s_ favorite Win.” Thomas assures him with a grin.

There was a single high clear bell ding and they as one turned towards the exam center room, a shiver working its way through the collective. “Okay. Okay. We got this.” Winston says, patting Rachel’s shoulder.

Thomas took a deep breath, pushing off of the lockers. He bumped Brenda’s side once. “We got this.”

After the tense dead-silent four hours of testing that left Thomas dizzy, they explode out into the sunlight. Through the massive mahogany doors, down the shinning glass walkway and out the wrought iron fence.

All the way back to Aris’s house where they do cannon balls in the pool and drink pre-mixed cocktails and laugh and just in general _celebrate_ because holy shit they _did it_. Brenda re-tweaks the hoverboard to have a little less ‘oomph’ and manages to get Aris on it, watching with a satisfied smirk and hands on her hips as he rockets around the backyard.

“We passed. We got in.” Thomas says to just Brenda, the two of them standing slightly apart. They wouldn’t get their results until after the weekend but he knew. He’d known from the first question.

Brenda let’s out a sharp sigh through her nose. “Yeah, we did.” She was quiet, contemplative for a moment before- “Oh my god.” She gripped his arm tightly and Thomas looked down at her, alarmed.

“Bren what?”

“Thomas.” She whispered, eyes widening in horror. “We’re gonna have to start wearing a _uniform_.”

-

Two days before the first barbecue of the summer, the one where Thomas and Teresa had shown up late, Thomas and Gally got into a fight. (Which would most likely, he was pretty sure, make this the first week of July, almost two months ago.)

It had been just after one of the times that Newt and him had wandered their way to the abandoned garage, breathing each other in and hands searching everywhere and Thomas’s lungs giving out as Newt made him break into a million pieces, face buried in his neck.

After, the two of them tucked into the doorway out of sight, Newt had quirked an eyebrow, reaching up to cup Thomas’s face, running a thumb across his lips and giving a playful hum.

 _Thump_.

Thomas’s heart hit his ribs with a wet smack. And then Newt tapped him on the shoulder with his knuckles lightly, once, twice, three times. “Later.” Sauntering down and out into the streets in long easy strides. And Thomas had stood there, trying to swallow and get everything under control. Pressing his forehead into the warm concrete of the garage’s back door and then hitting his head against the surface, feeling his brain rattle in his skull. Letting out an angry sigh.

“Well that was interesting.”

Thomas jumps _out of his fucking skin_ , and then his head whipped around, seeing Gally detach himself from his spot shielded from view by the dumpster in the alley, face calculating. There was a sharp smell of industrial chemicals that seemed to exude from the very concrete. It made his nose sting.

Gally just stared, impressive eyebrows slowly pulling together. “Don’t look so tilted, I’m won’t say anything.”

“I.” Thomas’s mouth stalls. He tries again. “It’s not-what’re you doing here?”

“Walking. It’s this thing people do. I’m not going to say anything, alright?”

Thomas shoots him a mutinous look, his skin felt hot, his tongue felt heavy. Guilt laced behind his eyelids. The chemical smell in his nose burned. “I don’t know what you’re-”

With arms crossing and scowl deepening, Gally looked Thomas from his shoes to the crown of his head, contempt clear as day. “I told you, I’m not going to say anything. But Thomas? Maybe this thing? Whatever the fuck this is? Maybe this isn’t such a data idea.”

“You don’t know shit.” Thomas snarled, panic sparking through his nervous system. Because _Gally didn’t know shit_.

It only makes Gally sneer. “You’re right. I’ve only been best friends with Dan my whole life and literally watched Newt grow up. And _maybe_ I have a better idea of where Newt is coming from then you do. But fuck me, right?” Contempt dripping like acid, falling to the ground to sizzle on the pavement. And then he pushes off the wall, walking forward and getting into Thomas’s space, and when he spoke the words were as grey and choking as smoke. “I’m just saying, be careful. He hides it pretty well, but you know he’s in-”

Thomas punches him. One solid crack across the face, Gally’s head snapping to the side with the force of it.

And then it devolved massively for Thomas.

Gally was older and had been in more fights and was decidedly bigger than him, and it only took an embarrassing three hits for Thomas to slam hard to the pavement, making his teeth rattle and all the air push out his lungs and up his throat. He rolls onto his back, and then his side, curling around the ripple that his stomach had become from a well-placed fist. Gally giving a kick as he walked past (although, admittedly, not as hard as he could have).

“Fuck you.” Snarled breathless at the retreating figure.

Gally snorted, not bothering to look back as he strolled away with an angry bounce in his step, hands in his pockets. “Right back at cha.” 

Later, sitting in Teresa’s bathroom as Minho winced in sympathy and pressed a towel to the cut on Thomas’s eyebrow while Teresa rifled through drawers, Newt had crossed his arms disapprovingly, leaning against the doorframe and scowling. “So, you just decided to start shit with Gally? Why? What the hell happened?”

“Nothing.” Thomas had said, voice clipped and staring determinedly at the wall. “Fuck Gally.”

-

Stumbling and tripping into Teresa’s house after the exam, late, much later than he usually did, waylaid at the checkpoint as him and Brenda did their best to act sober. He tried to tiptoe through the darkness towards his room, but at the last second thinks better of it, swerving towards Teresa’s instead. He knocks once, softly, and gets a quiet “Come in.”

She looks up from sprawling on her bed, watching one of the Wizards of Oz’s (because of course she is) on the tiny old TV that Thomas had fixed up for her. Light from the screen a bright square in the dark. Thomas stumbles over to the bed and she shifts to make room for him. Falling beside her with a massive ‘ _thwump_ ’ and rolling, with some difficulty, to look at her.

She stares back expectantly. “So, how’d it go?”

His eyes tear up, and he tries to blame it on that fucking Acai berry alcohol that Aris loves so much. “Why am I happy and sad at the same time?” He asks and she smiles sadly at him.

“Because you’re not sure what’s coming next, and you don’t know what you want. And that’s really really scary for you.” Her words are gentle and kind and make Thomas nod and bury his face in her pillow and try not to cry.

“What am I going to do without you?” Thomas whispers.

“You’re going to come home every weekend and visit me, that’s what you’re going to do.”

He sits up, rubbing his eyes. “T I can’t leave campus without parental permission. They need written _and_ an in-person interview with the school administration, they have to make sure it’s a ‘conducive supportive space for learning’.” He makes bitter air quotes. “I can’t hack my way around that one.”

She pauses the movie, turning to him. “Thomas, you have to go after what you want. I know you want too. Stop holding back. _Ask_ for what you deserve.” He blinked at her, chewing on his lip. Teresa’s smile grows and she reaches up, ruffling his hair. “Do you think you deserve to go to A.I?”

Newt thought he did.

“Yes.”

The dull glow of the screen made her eyes look, if possible, bluer. “Do you think you deserve to be with Newt?”

“ _Yes_.” The word out of his mouth without a second’s hesitation.

Teresa smiled, soft and warm and he remembered, suddenly, how she had shared her lunch with him on the first day of school. A ziplock bag of grapes, half a ham sandwich. “Well okay then. Go ask for what you deserve.”

Thomas retreats to his room, lying in his bed and staring at the ceiling. Wishing Newt was next to him and his whole body aching. Eventually his eyes droop closed.

He sleeps for almost thirteen hours, and when he stumbles out the next mornin-holy shit _afternoon_ , Teresa’s mother looks at him for a long moment. Taking in his bleary stare and hair standing out all over, and she raises her eyebrows and give a simple, mildly impressed. “Wow.” But despite the ‘wow’-ness of it all, Thomas feels _better_. He feels _clear_.

The opening ceremonies for the Olympics would start tomorrow. Miyoko was _everywhere_ and despite the mild dread and jumping nerves that have taken up permanent residence in his stomach the excitement that seemed to shake the very street he lived on was infectious, and Thomas finds himself drawn in. 

“This, this is my masterpiece.” Teresa declares in her backyard after Thomas had showered off a thirteen-hour coma and stumbled outside. Her hands resting on her hips over color splotched overalls. She stares at the massive bedsheet spread out on the ground, donated by her mother and turned into a work of art by Teresa herself. Minho and Thomas claiming the roles of helpers through the act of holding the banner flat. 

In equally splotched clothes, Minho and Thomas agree feverishly. ‘G.V forever’ splashed across the canvas, Teresa’s now iconic bubble-lettering shouted out, and Thomas wasn’t sure how she’d managed it, but the canvas seemed to scream with rebellion and pride. 

“Alby and Ximena are going to love this. Where you hanging it?” Thomas asked, staring down at the artwork and then up at her.

A curl escaped the bun on Teresa’s head and she blew it away with a puff of her lips. “Dunno, maybe the front of the house? I know they’re setting up the projector so that the garage door is one big screen. Are you still gonna help him hack the uplink?” Thomas bit his lip and nodded. He’d promised Alby he’d do it weeks ago. Before.

  
Teresa crouched down, adding a last few bits of shading. Minho let out a low whistle, and on his shirt were the words ‘One child, one teacher, one book, one pen.’ overtop of a outlined image of Malala. She had been Minho’s idol since he did a project on her in the eighth grade. “T, are you taking a art course as one of your senior elective classes?” Minho asks, eyes running over the canvas.

Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully, tilting her chin. “No. But I think I’m going to stop by school tomorrow and change my schedule up a bit.” 

“Yeah.” Minho agreed with a laugh. “I think that’s probably a good idea.” Thomas looked at the two of them, Teresa with her art across her clothes and beaming with satisfaction.

Minho, so politically charged and ready to champion his causes that he walks around with them on his body like a billboard. Chasing what they wanted.

He might not be able to have what he wanted. He might have to choose. He might get nothing. But he could _try_. Maybe, just maybe, he could be more than this. While still being him. “I gotta go.” The words flying out of his mouth, riding the wave and spinning around before he could second guess himself.

Minho sputtered as he rocketed out of the backyard. “Thomas what-”

And Thomas turns, looking at the two of them splattered in paint. “I’ll be back.”

The rattling swaying commute is longer on the weekend and the cops give him a hard time at the security barrier. Pulling up his immunization records on his social file and shooting questions at him. He holds his temper, despite their tone, and eventually he gets past.

Sneakers squeaked on the shinning lacquered wood floor, striding along the halls with purpose. The whole school empty, even emptier he was used too, and absently he wondered what’d be like in the fall, the building full and chattering with a entire student body. Maybe he’d find out. 

Thomas shoved open the door to the biology room with the momentum he’d been building since the bus ride here, crashing into a desk and shouting “Mary?” 

The teacher looked up, eyebrows shooting to her forehead as Thomas tumbled into the classroom. “Thomas? What’re you doing here?” 

He came to a screeching stop in front of her desk like the roadrunner throwing on the brakes. “I’m good. At coding. At programming. I’m really _really_ good. And...” he squared his shoulders. “And A.I should want me as a student, because I’m more than good. I’m one of the best. And I need...” he took a deep breath. And thought of Newt.

And what Newt wanted for him. What Newt wanted him to have. What Newt thought he could have. What Newt thought he could _be_. What the three of them thought he could be.

“I need you to help me. So that I can go here. And this school should want me to go here. So...” Thomas trailed off, swallowing. 

There was a moment of ringing silence. The computer on the desk that Mary sat at beeped three times, as if it was laughing at him, as if it saw how ridiculous it was for Thomas, some stray with nothing, to ask for things. To _demand_ things. To think he deserved things. He fought a blush rising in his cheeks. Fuck that computer.

Mary’s hands drew away from her laptop, lacing together and leaning forward on her desk. “Okay.” She said with a nod, and the genuine earnestness of her entire presence made something in Thomas’s throat close. Gesturing with her hand for him to sit. And he does, trying he best to wipe the disbelieving expression off his face.

“So.” She smiled. “Let’s figure this out.” 

-

He goes with Teresa to school the next day, to keep her company, he explains. But maybe there’s just a hint of a sentimental smile as he pushes open the heavy blue-paint-chipped doors. Maybe he reaches out and brushes the lockers as they walk to the registration office. Maybe he waits outside the reception, to think, while Teresa goes inside to change up her schedule, to take a gamble on her art.

Thomas slid to the ground, sitting against the wall and looking at the old trophy case, the same medals and picture’s that’d always been there in the main entrance. He’d never really stopped to look at them before.

“I hear congratulations are in order, Mr. Edison.”

Thomas looks up, and today the pants suit is an absolutely beautiful rainy-day-grey. “Oh, um. Thanks.” He hopped to his feet and for the first time realizes that he’s taller than Paige.

She smiles at him, one eyebrow raising. “I know it’s supposed to be secret until all the results are released, but one of your teachers reached out to inform me that you passed and accepted a spot for the fall. I wasn’t the least bit shocked.”

Thomas clears his throat. “Oh, uh. Yeah. Thanks.” Knocking his knuckle nervously against the wall.

“Well, seeing as you won’t be returning here for your last year,” She held out her hand, and Thomas takes it numbly. “Good luck.” She gives a single firm shake and turns to leave.

“Hey, uh, Pai-Principal Paige?”

She turns around. “Yes, Mr. Edison?”

He swallows. “Thanks, you know. For…for everything.” She nods, turning again, and something occurs to Thomas.

“Wait-uh.” He asks and she turns for a second time, eyebrows raised. “How’d. How did you know I’d passed? Who-why did one of my teachers tell you?”

The woman’s lips twitch up. “Your Biology professor, Mary. Her and I attended Alexandria together.”

Thomas blinked. “You…you went to Alexandria?” She laughed, once, the only time he’d ever seen her do it.

“Yes, Mr. Edison. Mary and I are actually both from this borough.” She quirks her eyebrow mischievously at him. “We were part of the inaugural class of the Bridging Program, funnily enough.” And with that she turns, walking down the empty hallway, heels clipping and echoing off the lockers and linoleum. Thomas watches her go, mouth moving wordlessly.

Teresa and him part ways on the sidewalk, her heading back to their house and Thomas trudging resignedly towards Alby’s, dread filling his shoes like cement. “You got this. Just be breezy. Easy breezy. Breezy as _fuck_.” Teresa had advised him while patting his shoulder consolingly. He hated himself _viciously_ for promising weeks ago to help set up the uplink. But how could he have known?

“Oh.” Alby says, blinking and clearly taken aback as Thomas marches himself through the gate. And then he recovers and the shock is gone in a moment. “Hey, thanks for doing this man. I wasn’t sure…” He clears his throat.

Thomas walks woodenly forward to the small tablet sitting on a milk crate and attached to the projector pointed towards the closed garage door and crouching down. Doing his best to sound breezy. Breezy as fuck. “No worries. Getting the uplinks can be a bit tricky, so…” Thomas was infinitely thankful for the device in his hands and the excuse to not look Alby in the eye. A slightly uncomfortable silence stretched into a _very_ uncomfortable silence that stretched into a _holy shit say something now_ silence.

“So I-”

“-Do you-”

“-Oh I-”

“-No, sorry, you go-”

Thomas looks up to see Alby smiling ruefully, and he can’t help but laugh once in return. The awkwardness doesn’t so much melt as become more manageable.

Alby nods to the projector. “You were always good at this stuff, even as a kid. Glad to hear your taking it further.”

Thomas blushed, looking back down. “Oh, um. Thanks.” He should probably get used to it, to people just bringing up his new school so casually. It was odd. He’d put so much into hiding it, so much pain and frustration and shame.

But.

It was strange. The minute Teresa’s mother had started to tell the cashier at the grocery store about his acceptance, patting his shoulder proudly and beaming, all he’d wanted in the world was for her to do it again.

“You fixed my mom’s TV once. Got the pixels to reconfigure or whatever the hell you did.”

Thomas looks up at Alby, the uplink connection download bar filling slowly across the screen. He’d been eleven, and given two full slices of apple pie as a reward. The memory on his tongue as warm and sugary as the desert had been. “Oh yeah. I forgot about that.” He chirps, and Alby smiled as well, soft and fond and maybe not seeing him at all.

They shook themselves out of their thoughts at a beep, Thomas clicking the final command. “So, it’s all good, all you gotta do is press ‘Cast’ and it’ll go right to the projector.”

Alby nodded. “Thanks. You’re coming tonight, right?”

Thomas shrugged. He still wasn’t sure if he wanted to deal with the absolutely terrifying idea of looking at Newt across the lawn and not being able to brush their fingers together. For some strange reason this seemed incredibly important. He didn’t know what he’d do with his hands. They might buzz with want and longing, filling up his fingertips with static and shocks like carpet against fabric. They might Itch. Because Thomas had a lot more questions than answers and _what the fuck was happening with them_. His chest throbbed painfully. “If I’m done packing in time, yeah.”

“Alright, well. Hope you do.”

“Thanks. It, uh, it cool if I go through the backyard to the alley? I’m gonna go and grab a drink from the store.” Scratching his elbow and shifting from foot to foot. Suddenly shy and asking permission where he once would have simply used the short cut. Things were changing already, apparently.

Alby nods, wordlessly waving him in the direction of the backyard before heading into the house. Yelling playfully through the screen door for Dan and Gally and Fry to get it together, the boss was here now. Dan’s laugh sounded lighter than it had in years.

Thomas grins in spite of himself at their shouts and swung around the corner of the house, pushing open the gate with squeak of hinges and feeling resistance from a thin layer of rust. He shoves, shaking the gate. And then again, forcing it open, stumbling.

Letting the sun beat down on him outside the Convenience store, looking down at the bottle of apple juice in his fist and feeling the taste on his lips. A bike bell dinged on the street. The chatter of people on the sidewalk washed over him. Eyes slipping closed and breathing out once, slowly, until all the air had left his lungs and his head spun. And then back in.

And then Thomas runs. He doesn’t realize he’s doing it until he’s done it, barely managing to swerve around people on the street as he sprinted. Along the alley and through the backyard and the gate is _still_ rusted, trying to jerk it open, losing his grip because of palms that were suddenly sweating, tripping backwards, feet pinwheeling under him to stay upright, stumbling right into-

Newt, swinging around the side of the house.

Hands snapping out to steady him, fingers tracing and holding, anchoring him, like always. Newt’s eyes widen, going shining and full. Body freezing half through his step and then jerking his foot down in a fluid defining motion. Mouth parting an inch and cheeks flushing. “Tommy.” Escaping in a sharp sigh. Echoed longing shaking the sound of his name in the air. 

Thomas is equally as beautifully heartbroken. 

“ _Shitfuck_.” He stutters, backtracking over his own feet. Tripping into the garbage cans and they might as well have been cymbals clashing in a particularly dramatic part of an opera with the volume they produce.

And again, because Newt would never let him fall, gentle hands gripping his shoulders, looking down at him, face shifting between joy and sadness and maybe, just maybe, bitten lip nervousness. “Tommy-” 

Something in Thomas snaps like a rubber band.

“No.” Thomas shakes his head as he walks forward, and Newt takes a step back in surprise. Opening his mouth to speak but Thomas barrels over whatever words were waiting. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to be all ‘Oh, Tommy. Look at me. The champion-of-one-liners. I’m so sad and tragic and noble, and I make all the decisions about what’s best for everyone and clench my jaw.’ You don’t get to do that.”

Newt’s lips twitch up in spite of himself. “I wouldn’t say _champion_ -” 

“And another fucking thing.” Thomas crowds him, backing Newt up with a bump against the side of the house, and Thomas’s pointer finger pokes his chest, because fuck it, he was on a roll. “It was never up to you. You can say whatever you want, but it’s my choice. You don’t get to decide all by yourself what’s best. You’re not king of the fucking borough, despite what everyone’s told you your whole life.” 

Newt stares down at him, eyebrows rising steadily, once again in danger of disappearing and lips tilting precariously close to a grin.

Thomas grits his teeth against the rush of warmth that the sight gives him, jutting his chin defiantly and fighting his stomach’s very apparent urge to flip. “You don’t just get to decide what’s good for me Newt. What I want matters too.” Newt was losing the battle with his smile, corners of his mouth twitching up. “You don’t-you don’t just get to decide for both of us. What I want matters just as much.” Thomas might not be talking about school anymore. “And! And. What-what you want matters too. What makes you happy matters too. It’s not wrong...it’s not wrong to choose something that makes you happy, Newt. To…to pick your own happiness.” 

Their faces were inches from each other. He wasn’t sure when that had happened. His finger was still pressing into Newt’s skin. He should stop doing that. And he does, but only to lay his whole hand flat against Newt’s chest instead, palm open and fingers splayed, feeling the heartbeat underneath, fast and quick and insistent. Thomas missed him so much his lungs were caving in. 

“I’m going. To school.” He snaps, fighting against the ache because Newt _needed_ to understand. “Not because you think it’s the thing I should do. I mean that's-I know you-I’m going because I want too. But I’m coming back. Because I want to do that too. I went to one of my teachers. I told them that they should want me as a student, and that they needed to find a compromise. So, they did. Eventually. Had to threaten a patent suit but...” Thomas trailed off with a weak laugh, running a hand through his hair. “Which is a sentence I never thought I’d say. Anyways, yeah. Teresa’s mom is gonna sign for me. They’re making an exception.” 

He swallowed compulsively at the memory. It had been terrifying, and in the back of his head the entire time he had spoken with Mary and the Headmaster all he could think was that he was making the biggest mistake of his life. The way his hands had shook and skin felt clammy and in his ears was the rattle and clank of bus wheels and the rising dread of the unknown to the beat of a thundering pulse. The taste of animal crackers thick on his tongue as he sat in the office amidst the tasteful wood and the tech that blended effortlessly together. But he'd _done_ it.

“I’m doing this thing where I ask for what I think I deserve. Going after what I want.” Thomas snapped out, and Newt tilted down, hair brushing his jaw. His thumb started to rub small circles on a sharp collarbone and Thomas tells it to stop. It doesn’t. Officially Enemy Number One. Dark brown eyes soften and his chest glows at the sight.

Newt bites his lip. “That’s good.”

“I was trying to make myself pick. To make myself choose.” He shook his head to try and counter the whirling thoughts in his head. “And I…I don’t want too. I don’t want to have to choose. I don’t want too. That’s not who I am. I think I deserve to go to school and I…I think I deserve you.”

A deep sigh rattled Newt’s shoulders, affection and exasperation mixing and melding in his voice and the glow in his chest is now has a distinctly hopeful feel. “You can’t have everything Tommy.”

“I can try.” The moment hanging, staring at each other, and in the very distant part of his mind that wasn’t currently getting lost in dark brown eyes, Thomas realized that, holy shit, it was broad daylight and _anyone_ could walk into the backyard.

And they weren’t jumping apart.

Newt swallows. Then, a hint of a smile. “There’s that plucky attitude.”

“Oh fuck yo-”

Newt kissed him. Soft and light and for a second Thomas freezes, the world whiting out. 

_Loveyouyouyouyouyou_.

Then he’s throwing his arms around Newt neck, hauling him down. It's fast. It's all happening _so fast_. Newt tugging at his waist, pulling him close. Everything in Thomas going off like fireworks, heart slamming against his ribs so hard they’re in danger of cracking. Sparks were jumping under his skin, his head spun, the smell of sweet grass was in his nose, he was _soaring_ , no VR flying simulation required. Thomas pressed their lips together so hard it almost _hurt_. Newt doesn’t seem to mind, hands gliding up his sides to wrap around his back, clutching at the fabric of his t-shirt, the two of them swaying. 

When they finally break apart, slowly, _so_ slowly, Newt keeps him close, his eyes closed and their noses brushing. Thomas wished he would open them. He loved them. And he’d _missed_ them. Newt twitched “I don’t...I just…I don’t want you to give anything up. I’m not saf-”

“I get to pick what I want to give up. _And_ what I want to risk. Stop putting aside what you want. Just because something makes you happy doesn’t mean it’s _wrong_ , or that it doesn’t _matter just as much_ Newt. And _stop_ deciding for me.”

The hands gripping his t-shirt tightened and Newt’s eyes finally opening as he worried his lower lip between teeth. “I don’t want you to get hurt. The other day, what happened. I don’t want you to have to risk anything. _Especially_ for me.”

Thomas shrugged. “Life’s risky. And not being together hurts too, so. Guess we’ll figure it out.” The sound of his own pulse thumping through his ears is deafening. And then-

Newt, smiling. Newt, sighing, as if in resignation. Newt, leaning in, lips brushing his. “Guess we will.” His body turned into a warm fog. Thomas couldn’t help it, getting caught up in the glow that seemed to be coming from his chest and he kisses him, and then again, just for good measure. 

And that’s all they do, for a while. The sun warm on his skin and the whole world quiet, only the crickets to keep them company.

Eventually Newt pulls back. “I was…I was coming to find you, actually. Alby said you’d gone to the store and I…Alex talked to me.” He offers, and Thomas blinks, taken aback. Newt and his step-father existed in the realm of cautious distances and stilted yet warm interactions. Not talks. Newt let out a tiny breath, hand moving to cup Thomas’s cheek, gaze hungry and making his knees weak. “He told me that ‘complicated’ doesn’t mean bad. That it just means a little different. That...if it’s something you want...” His fingers trace Thomas’s lip. “That it can’t...it can’t be bad if you feel…well. If you feel a certain way. If you want to be something...for someone.” He trailed off and Thomas’s eyes widened in understanding, but Newt was already speaking again. 

“I never really thought about it...like that. Blind spot, I guess.” He admitted with a cough of ruefully laughter. “How complicated it must have been. How him and my mom, you know. _Chose_ to be together, in spite all the shit they’d have to put up with.”

Thomas tilts his jaw up. “Yeah. Well. That’s what you do when…when you feel a certain way about someone.” Rebellious and stubborn and heart in his mouth. Newt swallowed and kissed him again, just a ghost of lips brushing.

And then-

That Smile. And Thomas might have just finally figured out what it meant. His throat felt tight, and he realized, absently, while drinking in Newt’s face, that it was closing, and it was with _happiness_. His breath was a whistle. His pulse was thudding in his ears. The crickets were laughing at him. Newt was laughing at him too, just a little. “King of the borough?” He asks, scarred eyebrow quirking and hands moving to rub Thomas’s arms, sweeping up from his elbows to his shoulders and then back down again. Soothing and loving and making him spin. 

He tried to speak around the block of wood that his tongue had become. “Well you act so fucking aloof all the damn time.” And then he leans in because they could be doing _other things_. The world doesn’t _quite_ white out this time, but it’s close.

“Tommy.” Newt murmured against his lips, warm and familiar and turning up at the edges. Thomas smiles right back, tasting the happiness on Newt’s lips. “Tommy.” Soft and light and mouths brushing. “Tommy.” Hands running through his hair, blunt bitten nails scratching his scalp and making him shiver. “Tommy.” Heart rising like a balloon inside his chest. “Tommy.” A happy sigh quickly stifled. “Tommy.” Newt whispered over and over again. “Tommy. Tommy. Tommy.” 

They stumble back to Thomas's, and it's kind of cosmic levels of luck that the house is quiet and empty. Clothes being peels off and maybe ripped in haste, Newt walking him backwards, the two of them bouncing off the doorframe and laughing, tripping, falling onto his bed. Hands reaching and clutching and sliding and fingers digging into skin. Chest's bumping against each other with frantic breathing before finding a rhythm. Newt's lips drawing long lines all over and shaggy soft hair brushing his cheek. Kissing and moving against each other. To Thomas it feels like being _safe_ and it feels like belonging to someone it feels like _belonging_ with someone. He shudders, head thrown back and through all of it Newt touches him like he loves him. 

The light outside Thomas’s bedroom window slowly faded towards pink twilight, and Newt raised his head from its spot next to Thomas, the two of them pressed together on his bed and sharing a pillow. “Tommy we should-” Thomas kissed him. “We should-” Again. “The party’s gonna start-” A soft breathless laugh against his cheek and then Newt kisses Thomas for _real_. And even though the world had stopped whiting out roughly an hour ago, he can’t help the swooping sensation in his stomach. That didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

Newt sighed with resignation, starting to push himself up, and a tiny spark of panic shot through him. “Newt wait.” Hands snapping out and gripping his shirt, and Newt lowers himself back down carefully. “Just.” Thomas let go with some difficulty, plucking at the fabric and trying to smooth out the creases with nervous movements. A scarred eyebrow arches in an unspoken question and Thomas blushes. “I just. Uh. Just as a heads up, Minho and Teresa, they know.” The jittering in his nerves is replaced instantly with indignation when Newt snorts.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t subtle. I’m glad. That…that they know.” And quite suddenly, Newt was, just maybe, _blushing_. But, still kinda a sarcastic shit. “You make me not subtle.” He offers with a tiny smirk.

Thomas’s smile got, weirdly, bigger. Because, weirdly, it made him really _really_ happy. The room bathed in a soft setting glow, everything blurry and colors pastel around the edges like a daydream. “You gave me a _hickey_.”

Newt shrugged, ducking his head and kissing his neck once, making him shiver. “Guess your dramatics are rubbing off on me.”

“Brenda saw it.”

“Bet that went down well.”

“Nah.”

“Never would’ve guessed.”

They smiled at each other, Newt’s happy beam warming him like the sun. But underneath all the warmth and the happiness and the joy at the _familiar_ feeling of the body pressing against his was a small nagging fear, and no matter how hard Thomas tried to get lost in dark brown eyes, he just couldn’t lose the prickling misgivings. Newt must’ve sensed it, because his own smile slipped a bit. “What?”

“I, uh.” Thomas looked down at his fist balled up in the fabric of Newt’s shirt, forcing it to let go and shrugging. “I’m just.” Looking back up. “I don't care. If you want to keep this quiet. Like, like it was.”

Newt's smirk got slightly bigger. "Well I mean there goes my plan to start coordinating our outfits-" Thomas snorted and shoved him lightly making Newt laugh, before slowly letting it slip and growing serious. A warm hand cupping his face, lips brushing his and Thomas couldn't help but melt into it. “We'll figure it out.” Newt says, staring at him, open and honest and maybe a tiny bit nervous which, admittedly, was fair. “Things are going to be different.” He reached out, giving a squeeze of his hand, and a single shrug. “It’ll be strange and hard but we'll figure it out.” And the frankness of his words, how very _Newt_ it was, comforted him. It felt better, _so_ much better, to talk about it, to share fears.

And he could feel Newt’s lips turn up when they kissed this time, offering him a soft, quiet, “Yeah. We will.”

The first thing Thomas notices when they slip out of his house was that someone had done a pretty good job with the sound system, that was for sure. The entire neighborhood spilled out onto the street, tables set up and covered with cloth, food piled high on top of them. Someone else had clearly splurged on those new biodegradable balloons, _not_ cheap.

Everyone crowded around the lawn as the live-feed played, and on the makeshift screen of a blanket draped over the garage door two news reporters sat at a desk and going over preliminary reports about the opening ceremony. What kind of show it would be, who the musical guest was, the basic stats of different high-profile athletes. (Miyoko’s face flashed across the screen next to her medal count and a cheer went up.) With a quick scan of the crowd Thomas spotted Teresa and Minho parked at one of the fold out tables with Harriet and Sonya, Newt’s chest pressing lightly against his back, the sensation filling him with happy pins and needles and jumping jittering nerves in equal measure.

There's a shout of Newt's name, and they turn to see Dan and Alby and Ximena and the others and Newt waves with a smile, but gestures to to the other table with a shrug, not waiting to see their reactions and pulling at Thomas's wrist. 

They slid over, throwing themselves down at the fold-out table next to each other, and Newt might be able to look relaxed and only smirk slightly when Minho raises his eyebrow questioningly, Thomas feels the heat rush to his face and his two best friends sitting across the table _beam_. He snatches the drink out of Harriet's hand. "Oh Thomas that has-"

He chokes over the _impressively_ strong drink, swallowing with difficulty and looking at Harriet scandalized. "Holy shit _Harriet_."

She shrugged, picking a nail. "What? I'm a tank." Next to her Sonya snorts. With a mischievous grin Teresa looks around before subtly pouring a clear liquid out of the small blue flask that lived permanently in her purse into two cups of punch, passing them to Thomas and Newt. There was a huge cheer, and the group of them looked up, watching the screen.

The massive shining coliseum was slowly filling up with athletes and Minho let out a low whistle. "Damn dude." And yeah, okay, _damn_ dude. The coliseum floor was breaking apart, the different boarders of countries appearing as the seams, and on each of the country shaped platforms the athletes from that nation stood and waved at the crowd of fifty-thousand and the camera's that broadcast to millions beyond. As the country-shaped platforms rose into the air to spin in gentle circles the frame panned in, focusing on one beaming waving figure in particular. One that Thomas had grown up with, watching her smile and laugh as she sprinted around the dirt track of his school.

And as people around them shouted and cheered and clapped, Newt took his hand, squeezing it and smiling. And then just keeps on holding it. And Thomas gets a little bit lost in his eyes, in That Smile. Longer, necessarily than was normal. Waiting for Newt to untangle their fingers. He doesn't.

Directly next to them Sonya looks down, noticing, eyes widening in understanding, tilting her head up at her brother, absolutely radiant. Offering a bright, satisfied “ _Radical_ dudes.”

And as everyone around them cheers, Teresa raises her glass with a playful grin. “A família.”

“Geon-bae.” Minho adds.

Newt rolls his eyes, and it might be the light of the setting sun, but his cheeks tint the slightest bit pink. And then he looks at Thomas.

Thomas's whole world was turning to color again.

-

He drifts in the liquid honey of dusk, blinds open and casting stripes against the far wall, the two of them tangled on Newt’s bed and the house blissfully peaceful. Only the gently clicking swirl of the ceiling fan and the sounds of the sidewalk drifting through the window. Newt was humming softly, and if Thomas couldn’t feel the vibrations through his cheek where it was pillowed against Newt’s chest he might have not noticed it at all. 

With drowsing clarity Thomas recognizes the song, and he can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. He feels Newt shift to try and look down, book placed forgotten on the rumpled bed. “Gonna let me in on the joke?” 

Thomas yawns. “It’s the ukulele one.” He explains sleepily, eyelids heavy and so _so_ content. A tiny part of him wishes he could stay in this moment forever. The body pressed against his was warm and soft and hard all at the same time. Fingers were trailing along his back in gentle sweeping lines. 

Newt’s previously-book-occupied hand comes up to cup his chin, tilting Thomas’s head up. “I’m not familiar with that one.” He says low and tracing Thomas’s freckles with his eyes, and already the air between them was starting to get a bit thinner, already he was feeling the first jolts in his stomach. It had been like that a lot since they had made up. He’d never say that their fight was a good thing, but yeah, alright, all this stuff was a wildly unexpected silver lining.

Thomas laughs. “No. Not a ukulele joke.” He kisses Newt once, soft as the light streaming through the window. “You’re humming ‘Over the Rainbow’. But it’s the one by IZ. The one with a ukulele.” 

Fingers brush hair away from his forehead and his eyes close momentarily. When he opens them Newt is smiling ruefully down at him. “How’d you know it was that one?” 

“Because.” He kisses Newt again, long and heavy and when they break apart maybe Thomas is pressing into him a bit harder, the hand at his hip gripping tighter. “I know you. And that one’s your favorite.” He shook along with the laugh that escapes Newt’s chest, elbowing him to make him stop, and then kissing him once, lightly, just for good measure. “Plus, you were tapping out the chords on my back with your fingers.” 

Newt hums knowingly. “Ah, see? Gave myself away.”

Thomas nodded seriously. “You’re your own worst enemy.” 

“Understatement.” Newt murmurs, tracing lines onto the skin of Thomas’s lower back, exposed from where his shirt had been rumpled and pushed upwards.

Victorious, Thomas applies himself once again to dozing contently on Newt’s chest in the evening twilight, and Newt picks up his abandoned book, finding his page and humming as he read. They were meeting up with Minho and Teresa later at the pool hall. The others would be there too. He didn’t have any homework to worry about and-

“I love you.” Newt says quietly and as matter-of-fact as if he was noting that the sky was blue.

Thomas’s face might split in half from smiling too hard. “I know.” 

“What gave me away this time?” 

With a lazy shrug Thomas inhales sagebrush and sunshine clinging to Newt’s shirt. “I know you better than anyone.”

-

On Thomas’s last night the four of them ride the bus to the water tower. Sitting quietly, legs dangling over the edge. Half-way between the ground and the future, watching the sunset.

(Nostalgia- a word of greek origin that means both ‘Homecoming’ or, it’s literal translation; ‘The pain from a old wound’ Thomas’s brain reminds him helpfully.)

“T?” Thomas asks, turning to watch Teresa as she doodles her new, more practiced and polished tag next to her old one from a endless summer day that felt like a lifetime ago.

“Hmm?” She offers, playfully batting away Minho’s hand as he tries to take the large felt pen from her.

“Why do you love The Wizard of Oz so much?” The sun lighting the whole city on fire. All the buildings seemingly made of copper, all the windows a shining glinting red. Atlas hanging in the distance. And the four of them. Together.

Teresa shrugged. “I just love it, I dunno. The adventure. The colors. The heartache behind it. The idea that you can click your heels and be home again, no matter where you are.”

Newt’s hand slipped into his, warm fingers lacing together with his own, and Thomas let a sharp breath out of his nose in a silent huff of a laugh. “Yeah, alright. I get that.”

-

Thomas was currently trying, really, really, _really_ hard not to cry. Had been trying, with lessening success, the entire bus ride to the checkpoint. He was failing. But so was Minho. And so was Teresa. Maybe Newt too, a little. At least he was in good company.

In the distance a metallically cheerful automated voice was telling people to expect delays, to make sure they have their I.D ready, to stay in an orderly line. They stood outside of the main entrance area, stopping just before the painted white line on the ground that declared ‘People traveling over the checkpoint only’. Thomas readjusted his backpack and took his duffle bag from Minho (who gave it over begrudgingly), putting it on the ground by his feet. 

Amidst the shuffle of crowd Teresa rubbed her eyes with careful precision, trying her best to fix slightly smudged mascara. “This is so fucking stupid.” She swiped delicately under her eye again. “You’ll literally be back in a week.”

“Yeah it’s just a week.” Thomas agreed, voice wavering and hands shaking. And all of his bravery, all of his, as Newt would say, ‘plucky attitude’ gone in an instant.

Minho sniffed, once, and then his arms wind around Thomas, pulling him into a crushing hug. He didn’t need ribs anyways. “Be careful over there with all those rich people okay?” Minho pulled back, gripping both of Thomas’s shoulders and giving him a single firm shake. “I’m proud of you.” 

And then Teresa threw her arms around his neck, and her feet left the ground in his exuberance to hug her. She buried her head in his shirt and let out a single wet hiccup. When he puts her down her makeup is shot to hell but she’s beaming up at him, letting out a sniffle.

He let out a hiccupped chuckle of his own. “I’m still your evil minion, right?”

Teresa patted his cheek. “You’ll always be my flying monkey.” And then she fanned her face with her hands, taking a step back and looking up. “Okay, fuck, fuck, I’m good. I’m good. We’ll give you two a mome-oh. Oh, okay.”

Thomas didn’t hear her, really, too busy dealing with the ringing in his ears. Newt had swooped down, kissing him soundly, hands cupping his face and pressing their lips together. And Thomas couldn’t help but reach up and grab his shirt, hands curling into fists in the fabric. All his resolve crumbling in that moment, because he didn’t want it to change. Didn’t want _this_ to change.

But it would, with or without him. And all Thomas could do was change with it. Grow with it. He couldn’t live in his memories.

Newt pulls back first, lingering, for just a second, a tiny peck added at the end of the long drawn out moment, both if his lips catching more of Thomas’s lower one. Newt, warm against him. Newt who thought he could do this. “I’ll pick you up from the bus stop on Friday?” He asks, maybe a touch uneven.

Thomas smiles. “Nah.” And then kisses him again once, quickly, for good measure.

“Well this is just heartwarming. Didn’t pick you as the PDA sort Newt.” They turn as one, and there, of course, is Brenda. Duffle bag much like Thomas’s slung over her shoulder.

Newt grins. “Exceptions can be made, in certain situations.”

Her eyebrow quirks and she nods at Minho and Teresa. “You guys Grumpy’s other keepers?”

Teresa laughs, gesturing appreciatively at Brenda. “I like her.”

“So do I.” Minho adds.

Thomas might have just created another monster.

He shrugs the monster-creating thoughts off and picks up his duffle, swinging it over his shoulder and looking at his friends. “I’ll be back.”

And it only takes another three shoulder shakes from Minho, two more hugs from Teresa, and finally, a single long, lingering, kiss from Newt.

He breaks away from them with difficulty, crossing the white paint line with a tight swallow.

When Thomas starts to veer off into the visitor entrance security line Brenda tugs at his sleeve. “Dumbass, we’re residents now.” Pulling him into a much shorter and faster moving line. Less of a screening process.

The profoundness of it hits and he stalls for a second. “Oh.”

Brenda takes pity on him, smiling and letting out a single chuckle. “I know. Took me a hot minute too.”

“Yeah. Kinda twisted…you know?” Thomas says, articulate as always.

“Valid.”

He turns and Newt is there, hands in his pockets and beaming, mouthing the three words that made Thomas's heart trip over itself.

They walk through the checkpoint with their new updated social files, and as they move past the security fences Brenda looks over her shoulder for a second. “You’re friend’s name, it’s Teresa, right?”

Thomas looks over his shoulder again as well and looks the three of them, watches Newt until a fence blocks them from sight, and he nods as they step over into their new world. “Yeah. What about her?”

“Nothing.” Brenda says with a shrug. And then- “She has nice eyes.”

-

In a borough where things weren’t as bad as they used to be, but still not great, a radio broadcast drifts out of an open Convenience store window. Shutters thrown wide to entice the sharp breeze that carried, amazingly, a hint of chill. 

Four small children stop in their chaotic game of tag on the sidewalk to listen, huddling around and hands hanging off of the window ledge to peek inside, as if the act of seeing the radio could make it louder. The cashier, noticing this, smiles, twisting the volume dial up. There was a short burst of static, and then-

“And straight from the campaign trail, we have one half of the most dynamic political teams that the country has, arguably, ever seen. Now, it might be a bit premature but I think it’s safe to say that I wouldn’t be wrong in calling you Mr-soon-to-be-Vice-President?” 

There was a laugh, low and deep and just a hint of embarrassment. “Not so sure about that. There’s still a few weeks left of the race, anything could happen. Don’t count your ballots before they’re cast.” 

The radio host let out a small tutting noise. “Now, I know you’re the modest half of the presidential bill, but, even you have to admit that if the preliminary polls are in any way accurate, your party is looking to win the presidency by an unprecedented landslide.” 

“Yeah, we’re doing pretty good so far, it’s been such an experience to finally see all these years of work come into action.” 

The sound of papers shuffling could be heard, and the host started in on the meat of the interview, tone growing more pointed. “Now, Mr. Edison-”

“Thomas.”

“Thomas, of course-the charisma between you and your running mate is clear, and even before the two of you started to campaign, you were in business together, right?” 

“Yep, we’ve been working side by side for a while now. She keeps me in line.” 

“Can you comment on your running partners most recent announcement that she plans on giving the new endangered ecosystem conservation laws ‘A little more oomph’ as she so delicately stated?” 

A notably undignified snort. “I think she said it all at the press briefing, to be honest.”

“You two initially made names for yourselves as the first, and in many cases, the last, word on sustainable energy and environmental reclamation, but even before that you went to school together, didn’t you?” 

There it was again, that warm genuine laugh. “You’ve done your homework. Yes, my running mate and I met during our senior year of high school. She’s actually the one that got me started on the process of environmental reclamation.”

“Your cabinet is full of old faces, isn’t it?”

“Yep. Right again.” Another chuckle. “One of our main advisers is a childhood friend. He’s been interested in politics since we were kids. Never met someone with a stronger sense of right and wrong. I met a few other of our other party leaders during my senior year as well.” 

“Now, it’s not just your cabinet that’s full of old faces, your running mate met her wife through you, didn’t she?” 

Even over the radio, everyone listening could hear the grin. “She’s my adopted sister. It was-and they’re going to kill me for saying this-most definitely love at first sight.” 

“Was love the thing that inspired your sister’s most recent art exhibit? Her decision to hold the event in your old neighborhood has been herald as a political move to further your campaign.” 

“It was an exhibit about history, about belonging, about where you’ve come from and where you can go. No better place for it than our old neighborhood, to be honest.” 

“And that, truly, seems to be what you’ve hung your campaign on, isn’t it Thomas? Where you’ve come from, and where you can go. It is quite the story, a mixed cabinet of people both from our own cities boroughs as well as the wealthier.”

“It is, really. That’s one of the things we’re fighting for, above all else. The chance to be anything. The chance to be more.” There was a moment of silence, contemplative, and then he continued. “I was given that chance. A lot of people came together to _help_ give me that chance. And now I want to help give that chance to others.” 

“Your speaking, of course, about your somewhat contested platform of removing the checkpoint system all together?” 

“No one should be trapped behind walls just because of where they were born. No one should turn on the news every day and feel their planet slipping away from them. Feel _hope_ slipping away from them. That’s what we’re trying to do. Make the world a little more hopeful, if we can. Through our work on environmental reclamation. Though our work with wealth redistribution, through ending the checkpoints that keeps us divided. Through showing kids-people, really-that it doesn’t matter where you came from. That everyone, _everyone_ , deserves a chance to hope. My husband taught me that.” 

“Of course. His organization to help fund the new public education system does seem to be quite ambitious. He started the foundation with his sister and her wife and two others from your neighborhood, didn’t he?” 

“He did. They’re doing amazing work. It’s been unbelievable to watch the them achieve so much in such a short period of time.” 

“It truly has. Now, turning to more wide range topics, after you're done campaigning here, which has been wildly successful if I do say so myself, your moving along to-”

Outside the Convenience store the group of children hung off the window sill and every word coming from the radio. All of them wearing light jackets, leaves blowing down the pavement on a fall wind. The season starting to change. 


End file.
